If it were teenage drinking instead of guns

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Ry and I were talking about operation “Fast and Furious” on the drive back from the range yesterday. The synopsis is, suppose operation “Fast and Furious” were about teenage drinking instead of guns. Law enforcement would have given $70,000 to several underage people and told them to go buy alcohol at particular stores where law enforcement would tell the stores to not check the IDs of the people they gave the money too.

Law enforcement would then find receipts from those purchases at drunk driving accidents. The executive branch would then claim more laws are required to register people who want to buy more than one six pack of beer or one bottle of hard liquor at a time. The news media would enthusiastically support this proposal until it was discovered that a law enforcement officer was killed by one of the drunk teenagers. Then both the news media and the government officials would say they aren’t going to admit any wrong doing and the proposed laws are a good idea even if enforcement of the existing laws would have prevented the problems they used as justification for the new laws.

As Kevin and I discussed last night the entire scandal was only exposed when people who stomp kittens to death as part of their regular job found it too immoral to continue with the operation.

Quote of the day—Ry Jones

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Yeah…. And I want to f*** supermodels tomorrow. Both have about an equal chance of success.

Ry Jones
September 10, 2011
This was in response to the Brady Campaign’s search for a new president who will be given the “Programmatic Objective” of “Build the movement to insure that all guns in our nation are childproofed by 2015.”
[Sebastian and Kaveman have more comments.

I also laughed at this one:

Develop strategies to determine and promote evidence-based arguments for public policies, which are grounded in research and support common sense efforts at reducing gun violence.

As a scientist I would be persona non-gratia in most scientific circles if I advocated for something like that. You don’t look for evidence to support your preconceived notions. Furthermore an abundance of evidence exists which supports the conclusion that the Brady Campaign is on the wrong side of the data.

And finally since they are looking for justification to infringe upon a specific enumerated right this goal is like the KKK looking for evidence to justify racial segregation and discrimination. Even if it exists they have no business attempting to use the force of government to achieve their objectives.—Joe]

Author of “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun”

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Paul M. Barrett, the author of Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, showed up at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. We have been pushing him a little bit for some of the things he has written in the past. While he is someone I would characterize as mildly anti-gun* I don’t think I need to put on my tin-foil hat. With the limited information DirtCrashr had his suspicion was reasonable. But I’ve spent many hours with him now and I think he is probably being straight with us when he says he thinks we will like his book. I have agreed to read it and write a review of it. I expect I will get a preliminary version in a few days. My expectation is that I will find it an interesting read and will suggest it to others.

He went shooting with us yesterday and he shot a variety of guns and said he had a great time. He also said he tried to buy a handgun but going through the paperwork required by New York City had a rather chilling effect, “The police have no business knowing all the information they requested.” That was a very good sign to me.

In case you are wondering; after I showed him the video I made he showed me the video he made. We had a nice discussion afterward and (I believe this is correct) his position is that there might be some instances where the banning of possession of magazines greater than eight or ten rounds would save a few lives. He concedes there might be cases where such a ban would cost a few lives. In any case that’s not something worth investing political capital in. He put that in there mostly to point out that the 1994 “assault weapon” ban was totally worthless. The only thing that would have a chance of making people safer is a ban that would prohibit possession as well as manufacture and sale. But again the political difficulty of passing such legislation is not worth the effort.

The bigger story, again paraphrasing my discussions with Barrett, is that the anti-gun people biggest successes were the seeds of their failure. The Glock supposedly being “invisible to X-rays” got it unwanted attention by the Federal Legislature. But this increased its public profile and sales. The same with the 1994 ban on magazine capacity greater than 10 rounds. The irony is fascinating to him and he explores this in his book. This is part of what makes the book a very good read.

I’ll let you know after I read it but for now he has me about 90% sold when he says it is a good book that gun owners will enjoy.

*Update: After reading his comment I think that instead of “mildly anti-gun” it would be more accurate to say he is accepting of more gun regulation than I am comfortable with to call him pro-gun. And in any case as I have said before finding something to disagree with him on, which I could find many, is not the way you recruit people to your cause. Find the things that you agree on and work together on those issues. If necessary the points of disagreement can be revisited when you have accomplished everything you can as a team.

Quote of the day—Jennifer

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There is only ONE purpose for a gun and that is to kill. Knives have other purposes but the only thing a gun is good for is killing.

Jennifer
September 7, 2011
GOP’s gun raffle in gabrielle giffords county
[With about 10 billion rounds of ammunition sold in the U.S. each year one has to wonder where all the bodies are being piled. And I find it odd that I went through about 200 rounds yesterday and I don’t recall killing anybody or anything.

I have to conclude that either my gun or Jennifer’s brain malfunctioned. I’m going to gather some more data today but for now I’m going with Jennifer has crap for brains.—Joe]

Seldom Do I LOL…

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…even when I’m watching good comedy.  Maybe it comes from growing up in a large family.  If you LOL, shut up already.  I’m trying to listen, and anyway, how can you listen while you’re cackling?  (In a live social situation, at least the deliverer of the comedy usually has the sense to wait for some degree of quiet, so that’s different)  Stuff like that.  But I LOL’d at this, from Tam;

Meanwhile, I’d like to offer my services to moderate the next GOP debate:

“Now, if you will all look down at your podiums, you will notice that you’ve all been provided with a short document. A few of you might even be vaguely familiar with it. If you don’t mind, could you each just look in the part headed ‘Article II’ and point out to me the sentence or phrase that indicates that ‘job creation’ or ‘the economy’ is within the presidential purview?

We’ll start with you, on the end, with the hair. No, not you… the other one on the end, with the hair…”

It’s absurd in its truth.  Funny and sad.

When thinking of the most recent, absurd rationalizations and excuses for government meddling, and the obvious expectation from politicians that we revere them (why is never explained) I find, more and more frequently, the phrase, “None of your filthy, stinking, rotten business, you sniveling, made-up, hairsprayed, lying piece of shit with the painted-on smile” comes to mind, followed by the thought that if you actually told them to mind their own business they wouldn’t understand– they actually believe that your business IS their business.  Tam made it funny is all.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I should clean my guns.

An opportunity

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Paul M. Barrett is at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. I talked to him for a couple hours last night.

Barrett is the author of this article which includes:

The rise of the Glock and other semiautomatic handguns cannot be linked to variations in overall crime rates. But that doesn’t mean it would be pointless to take small steps to reduce mayhem, such as restricting magazine capacity. One lesson of Tucson is that there is a difference between a 33-round clip and an 8- or 10-round clip.

If I get another chance to talk with him I’m going to show him this video:

Then I will bring up the constitutional issues.

He just sat down by me. Time to get busy….

Quote of the day—Barron Barnett

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These piss swilling cheeba monkeys are TSA agents because of one of the following three conditions:

  1. They are too stupid to get a job any place else, including McDonald’s.
  2. They get off on physically molesting people .
  3. They are wanting crimes of opportunity for theft .

There are no other options.  While one would say maybe they just need a job, the bottom line is they sold their morals down the river and now are molesting people.  They are molesting people cause obviously they’re too stupid to get a job any place else.

Barron Barnett
September 8, 2011
A Security Theater and Illegal Aliens
[I think there is the possibility of some other reasons.

  • They could be of the opinion that it is the job of government to do these sort of things. The reasoning could be something like, “Government is for the good of the people. If the government does this then it must be good.”
  • They simplistically believe that laws against “molesting people” do not apply if they are wearing the proper badge (see examples where people have explicated claimed that possession of a badge means “the law doesn’t apply to us” here).

Still, Barron gets it almost completely right in the rest of his post which I categorize as “a nice rant”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Barbara Scott

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WP_000213

What the hell?

What are these people thinking?

Barbara Scott
September 8, 2011
Via text message after I sent her the picture above of, top left to right, Mr. Completely, David, and in front Kevin.
”Face colander” provided by David specifically for Kevin.
[Gun bloggers sometimes mock the stereotypes assigned to them.—Joe]

Gunwalker Guns Not ‘Allowed’

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If you believe the BATFE merely “allowed” criminals to buy the guns,  you have to believe that there were regular, on-going attempts, by Mexican gangsters, to make huge purchases at U.S. gun stores, that these huge purchases were being regularly denied, and that the Mexican gangsters simply kept trying, failing, trying, failing, and then one day, all of a sudden, the gigantic sales start being approved, one and another and another, simply because our local dufi started pushing the green button instead of the red button.  And nothing else.

Sorry; I can’t believe it.  I say those purchases were engineered.  Someone had to be in contact with known criminals, asking them, or ordering them, to come here and make those purchases and take delivery down south.  Can we please stop using “allowed” or “let” when talking about this?  It defies logic.

Let’s also be very careful about getting indignant, saying in essence, “Allowing guns to be sold in the U.S. resulted in crime.”  No, Little Grasshopper.  Criminals result in crime (and the sons of bitches who work with them at our expense).  I cannot be convinced, in any case, that said criminals couldn’t have gotten, wouldn’t rather have gotten, their guns from any of multiple sources in their own country including U.S. government arms supplied ostensibly as aid, from other Central and South American countries, and from the black market.

Criminals and tyrants will always be armed.  The only question is whether the good guys will also be armed, and Gunwalker was an attempt to engineer a crisis so as to help answer this question in the negative.

Quote of the day—The Vancouver Action Plan

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Land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. Social justice, urban renewal and development, the provision of decent dwellings-and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole.

The Vancouver Action Plan
June 1976
Agenda item 10 (d)
[Via an email pointer from JoeyD Sr. to a web page about Agenda 21.

I am reminded that Stalin had a particular interest in the land owners of the Ukraine and several million people died as he tried to “create a better society”. He and his followers considered themselves “progressives” and those that opposed him were called “regressives”. Sound familiar?

I would like to remind “public planners” (I prefer to call them “the central committee”) that rural land owners in this country are much more likely to own firearms than the population at large. My limited sample suggests nearly 100% of them own firearms.

Μολὼν λαβέ! can equally well and should apply to acres as well as guns.—Joe]

Agreement with Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything

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Barb received an email the other day from our friend Michelle. She has started a blog, Sex, Lies, and Sensibility. Her first post essentially says, “Dr. Joe is correct.”

Gun Blogger Rendezvous

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Ry and I will be taking off for Reno from Seattle tomorrow afternoon. We expect to attend breakfast on Thursday.

I still have some prep to complete and I realized I left my daypack in Idaho yesterday with one of my guns I planned to take. Rats! I still will have three long guns, one pistol, and thousands of rounds of ammo to play with.

Kevin is already on his way.

Quote of the day—Jack Steen

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THIS IS THE REASON THE REPUBLIKLAN WILL GO DOWN IN DEFEAT IN THE 2012 MANDATE ELECTIONS THAT WILL RETURN THE NATION TO DEMOCRATIC PARTY RULE FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT THIRTY YEARS !

Jack Steen
September 02, 2011
Comment to Republican gun raffle in Giffords’ county draws criticism
[Caps in the original.

I’m struck by the parallels between the mindset of anti-gun people, “the anointed” as described by Thomas Sowell, and the army leaders during the lead up to the war with the Nez Perce Indians. They don’t, and perhaps can’t, understand the other side, they “know” they are right and it is obvious their opponents are wrong to the point of being insane. A final parallel is that when things turn out different than expected instead of revising their mindset they proclaim their superiority even louder.

If it weren’t a matter of life and death it would be amusing.—Joe]

Mecca construction progress

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Son-in-law Caleb and I went to the Boomershoot site both yesterday and today. Yesterday we removed the remains of the first Boomershoot explosives storage magazine. I had busted it up with the bulldozer last June and finally got around to hauling it off.

Today we put some old railroad ties in place for supporting a modified 40’ shipping container in place as a manufacturing site for Boomershoot reactive targets:

IMG_6420

The shipping container should be delivered in two or three weeks. It’s going to be awesome to have a place to build the targets with lots of room and sheltered from the wind, snow, rain, hail, sleet, sun, and various combinations thereof we have endured in the past.

The railroad ties had been donated by Matthew and hauled to within a couple hundred yards by Barron and Janelle. There was a crop in the field and they couldn’t get them all the way to the site. Enough of the crop was cut last night and this morning that we got them in the rest of the way. We also brought in some gravel to position them. That turned out to be a bit of a misadventure.

I originally planned to just put down a tarp in the back of my SUV and shovel in some gravel at my brother’s place a couple miles away and carry it over like that. My brother suggested using the bucket loader on the tractor. Since one bucket full would be plenty a single trip with the loader would take less time than shoveling it into and out of my vehicle. Good idea.

The problem was that the heavy load in the bucket exposed a fatigued weld in the 35+ year old tractor and as I crossed a small ditch the front left wheel broke off:

IMG_6451

IMG_6454

As you can see in the second picture most of the area of the weld had been broke for some time.

We ended up shoveling the gravel we needed into the back of my SUV and delivering it the last 150 yards or so as originally planned.

My brother Doug and I looked at it fairly closely and it looks like the pieces can be taken off, tossed in a pickup, and taken back to the shop for repair. It’s probably a half-day job that is relatively inexpensive.

I was just glad that it didn’t break on the county road as I was going much faster and next to a step drop off. It could have been much more serious.

Here’s an opportunity for a caption contest:

IMG_6458

Quote of the day—Jeff Rogers

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When I first heard about this last week in an email, I said ‘That’s a joke, a sick joke. Nobody could be doing that.

This is like tearing the scab off a wound. This community is still healing.

Jeff Rogers
September 1, 2011
Pima County Democratic Party Chairman
Republican gun raffle in Gifford’s county draws criticism
[Would he say something similar if it were a group had a speaker come in that was of the same skin color as someone who, eight months previously, was known as the “D.C. Sniper”? Or what of someone who spoke on behalf of the mentally ill after someone eight months earlier had shot numerous people? Would they be treated with such scorn?

I can’t imagine someone getting away with that. Yet a different model of one of the most popular brands of firearms is regarded as if it shares some blame in the shooting. In this guys view people apparently should treat certain brands of firearms as if they are an infectious disease or something.

This guy has crap for brains and the results are pleasing.—Joe]

Quote of the day–Kristopher

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The first thing I ask “peaceniks” who advocate gun control: Are you planning on voting to send armed government officials out as your agents to seize guns and kill those who refuse to comply?
 
How can you be in favor of ‘peace” and send out armed thugs to do your political will?

You are not a pacifist. You are merely squeamish, and want someone else to murder others for you.

Kristopher
August 29, 2011
Comment to why are they so eager to expose their bigotry?
[I like that!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Diane S. Sykes

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Both Heller and McDonald suggest that broadly prohibitory laws restricting the core Second Amendment right—like the handgun bans at issue in those cases, which prohibited handgun possession even in the home—are categorically unconstitutional. Heller, 554 U.S. at 628-35 (“We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.”); McDonald, 130 S.Ct. at 3047–48.

Diane S. Sykes
July 6, 2011
Circuit Judge
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
RHONDA EZELL, et al., v. CITY OF CHICAGO
[I am not a lawyer but the way I read this is that “common sense” gun laws are going to have a rather difficult time getting past the courts because ‘interest-balancing’ is likely to be a non-starter.—Joe]

What would Hillary do?

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In response to Lyle’s post yesterday in regards to our military involvement in the mid-east ubu52 said, “My ideal candidate was Hillary and I think we all know what she would do.”

I honestly have no idea what Hillary do in regards to the mid-east if she were president. I suppose I could do some research on it but I don’t want to destroy this rather pleasant image I have of her flying over the desert on her broomstick turning princes into frogs.

Quote of the day–Jack Dunning

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As far as I’m concerned, you have about as much right carrying a gun around in your purse, or pocket, or whatever, as does one of my cats.

Jack Dunning
September 1, 2011
Comment to Another shooting death in Arizona: Gun legislation continue to fail.
[And there were people who, as far as they were concerned, insisted that people of different skin color had no right to marry either.

There is a reason this nation was intended to be a nation of laws and guaranteed rights, and not the preferences of whoever the current bigots in power happened to be. And we are much better off for it.—Joe]

Headaches and sex

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Barron reported on sex and female headaches. Apparently some scientist investigated something Dr. Joe and others have known for a long time. Sex is a cure for headaches.

There is some interesting information in their study. Apparently during orgasm parts of the brain shut down and inhibitions decrease. I pretty sure nearly every sexually active adult is well aware of the loss of inhibitions during sexual arousal and orgasm. And as for the brain shutting down… La petite mort.

The only new information here is that scientist did the scans and verified what we already were aware of.

Posted in Sex