Fighting the last war

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The Brady Campaign just sent out a fundraising letter:

I’m sorry, Gov. Perry, I didn’t quite catch what you said…
 
Dear Friend,

Is this the type of President the American public wants?

When asked if he was armed on the campaign trail, Texas Governor Rick Perry smiled and replied, “That’s why it’s called concealed.”

Stop this extremism before it reaches
the White House!

The Republican primary campaign has hardly begun and already it is being dominated by extremists. None as scary as Rick Perry who brazenly carries weapons — concealed and revealed. Even on the campaign trail!

Only an egotistical extremist would carry a loaded weapon into a crowd — encouraging others to do so.

Is this where America is headed? Is this the America you want for our nation’s children?

Polls prove over and over again that Americans support sensible gun laws and don’t want guns in public places. Our goal is for our elected officials to reflect the will of the American people, not the “guns everywhere” ideologues.

Please help us with a donation today to stop gun extremists before it is too late.

Sincerely,
 
Sarah Brady, Chair
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
 

They keep using that word “extremist”. I don’t think it means what they think it means (from Princess Bride of course). There are about six million active concealed weapons licenses in this country. That doesn’t count all the people who legally carry concealed weapons in Vermont, Alaska, and Arizona without a license. Compare that to the number of Brady Campaign donors. 6,000,000 versus 50,000 is a ratio of 120:1. In other words the Brady Campaign donors number just 0.83% that of active concealed weapon licenses. Even if compared to the entire population of the U.S. there are active concealed weapons licenses for about 3% of the population eligible to legally carry. By any measure I can come up with the Brady Campaign is by far more extreme than those who possess concealed weapon licenses.

The problem for the Brady Campaign is they are fighting the last war with the same tactics they used then. And what makes it even worse is it was war they lost. That’s not too bright. But what do you expect from an organization that doesn’t know the meaning of the words they use?

Thirdpower and Lonely Machines have more.

Quote of the day—Janet Napolitano

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Let me be very clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States. We don’t have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence.

We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not – nor will we ever – monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources.

Janet Napolitano
Head of Department of Homeland Security
April 16, 2009
Homeland Security chief responds to right-wing extremism report
[Really? I wonder what sort of action Ms. Napolitano and her organization have taken in response to those responsible for operation Fast and Furious. It involved criminal activities and arguably terrorist activities as well as strong hints that it was aimed at infringing upon the civil rights of American people.—Joe]

CCW population by state

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Ken G. uploaded a spreadsheet to the wa-ccw-Washington State Concealed Weapons Discussion Yahoo Group. It contains the number of CCWs issued by state along with various statistics related to CCW {CCWPopulationByState.xls (145 KB)}. I have uploaded it to here for better visibility.

There are a total of about six million CCW active licenses out there.

Traditional hunting ammo banned in Washington state

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Joe Waldron sent out an email with an alert from the NRA. Here are some important points (emphasis in original):

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has imposed a ban on the use of traditional ammunition for all upland bird hunting on all WDFW pheasant release sites across the state.  This restriction was adopted by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission two years ago but its implementation was delayed until this hunting season.  The Commission adopted the restriction during the course of its 2010-2012 hunting season-setting process.

With this in mind, it is critical that hunters and sportsmen participate in the 2012-2014 season-setting process, which is just getting underway.  The WDFW will be hosting a series of public meetings next week to take comments from the public as the first step in the process.  You can bet that the anti-hunting extremists will be represented at these meetings so the importance of hunters and sportsmen participating cannot be overstated!

…

…

No scientific studies have been cited showing population-level impacts on any species.  The WDFW seems to be acting on emotion and politics, citing the “potential” for problems associated with traditional ammunition as the basis for these far-reaching restrictions.

The NRA believes that the current push to ban the use of traditional ammunition in Washington is part of a new strategy being used by anti-hunting and anti-gun activists all over the country to attack our hunting traditions and firearm freedoms.  Traditional ammunition bans have a significant chilling effect on hunting by pricing hunters out of the market while hunters’ ranks are already in decline.  The opposition’s “next logical step” will be to propose a complete traditional ammunition ban throughout Washington.  This is the pattern in other states so don’t think “it won’t happen here!”

…

With that in mind, it is important for you to attend the WDFW meeting in your part of the state.  The following meetings will run from 7:00-9:00 p.m.:

–         August 22 – Federal Way Community Center (Alder & Birch rooms), 876 South 333rd St, Federal Way
–         August 23 – Edison Place Event Center (Edison Room), 201 North Rock St, Centralia
–         August 24 – The Lincoln Center (Monroe Ballroom), 1316 North Lincoln St, Spokane
–         August 25 – Clarion Hotel & Conference Center (Selah Wapato rooms), 1507 North First St, Yakima

In addition to attending one of the above meetings, please comment on the issues at the WDFW’s hunting website.  Your voice matters!  Comments must be submitted by Tuesday, September 20.

It’s another case of policies being implemented by a theocratic government of the self-anointed.

Leftist governments are theocracies

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I just started listening to Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy but already I have several ideas for blog posts from the material. Then this evening I read How the Academic Left Engages in Debate by John Lott. It could have been another case study done by Sowell. The academic left, aka “the self-anointed”, comes up with some idea for social policy and then when the results come in different than what was expected they make excuses, attack those that point out the policy is a failure, and in general show a complete disregard for factual data.

Here is a sample:

In a debate carried nationally on National Public Radio, Donohue claimed that Wilson not only was employed by the National Rifle Association, but had let his employment bias his academic findings:

The lone dissenter was someone who was not an econometrician, who admitted in his dissent that he wished he knew more econometrics, and who had previously testified as an expert witness on behalf of the execrable NRA.

When later called on to justify this claim after the debate, Mr. Donohue did not offer proof, but instead called on Wilson to prove that he had never gotten paid by the NRA. When asked for evidence, Donohue e-mailed me: “Do you have Wilson’s email address or not? I am going to assume you do and that you know he worked for the NRA since you could ask him via email to confirm or deny and cc me, and you are not doing so.” Even later in 2009, after Wilson had denied that he had ever worked for the NRA, Donohue refused to accept it: “On the issue of the NRA, somehow I suspect that the Ronald Reagan professor of public policy doesn’t think the NRA is a bad organization and therefore any affiliation would not be deemed problematic.” Even during the last couple of weeks, with repeated calls to publicly retract his claim, Donohue has yet to correct the record.

Their beliefs cannot be refuted because facts are irrelevant to them. The leftist ideology is faith based. They just worship government instead of god(s). I find this very depression. Theocracies of any flavor have a strong tendency toward bloody repression of dissent.

Quote of the day—Roy Denney

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And, if you anti-gun liberals don’t want law-abiding citizens to have the guns, then go to the auctions, buy the guns, and destroy them yourselves. This still provides money to the communities for education.

Roy Denney
Aug. 15, 2011
Sales would aid communities, and gun haters could help
[Great idea! And I would be okay if they expanded the program to buying guns, with their own money of course, brand new from their friendly nearby gun shop. Buy them all send them all to hell. For the children–of course.—Joe]

Current news from Israel

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From our friend Howard Linett, Dateline Aug. 19/11, 4:12 AM PDT;

Friends:

I am speechless that the Washington Post On-Line Headlines do not include mention of the extensive attacks in southern Israel carried-out by as many as 20 terrorists between noon and 6 pm yesterday.  The terrorists infiltrated from the Sinai and used AKs, RPGs, IEDs and mortars to attack civilian vehicles and to ambush the military and police units responding to the attacks.  We have 8 dead – 6 civilians, 2 security personnel and more than 30 wounded.  In addition there have been over a dozen missiles and rockets fired at Israeli cities since last evening – 6 more wounded.   For more information check out YNET.com.

Anyway nothing like an attack to focus one’s concentration.  Up at 05:00 for Israeli Riflemen Association rifle (7.62×51 caliber ArmaLite with Black Hills Match) practice, I can report 100, 200 and 300 meters – damn I’m good!  I may be old, but I’m ready.  Quiet confidence now exudes from my pours.

Today is the 3rd Friday of Ramadan.  After yesterday’s attacks and Israel’s response and today’s incoming Kassam and Grad missiles and Israel’s continuing response, no surprise that there is rioting in East Jerusalem now that prayers have let-out.

Finally, I really do not know if it is for real or a joke, but on the way home from practice I pointed to the metal skeleton of the palace King Hussein was building in June of 1967.  You can see it from the road and I like saying that my home in 300 yards down from the hilltop on which the palace’s construction stopped when Israel recaptured Pisgot Ze’ev from the Jordanians.  One of the guys in the car, a senior contractor, exclaimed that the palace was undergoing “restoration” in anticipation of the present King of Jordan needing somewhere to go – soon.  The current King lacks his father’s resolve and will not institute another Black September.  The King now also knows US backing is an illusion.  Personally, I think he would be better-off in LA.

Howard

I don’t want King Whatshisname here.  We’re Americans.  We don’t recognise royalty.  I’d let him in only if he promises to be polite if we call him by his first name and don’t genuflect or any of that garbage, that he go through the regular immigration process, pay all his own expenses without expecting protection or special treatment of any kind, and not bring in any of the loot his government extorted from the Jordanian people.

Anyway; why report these attacks?  They aren’t news (“news” being any story, true or otherwise, that bolsters the leftist cause).

Twenty attackers and eight dead.  Good thing the attackers were run-of-the-mill jihadists then.  When the Americans go in somewhere, there are more like eight attackers and at least twenty dead.

Quote of the day—John Milton

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Nations grown corrupt
Love bondage more than liberty;
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.

John Milton
[I think there is more than one way to bondage. But bondage is a form of corruption so it may be that the correlation is so strong that it is difficult to distinguish them under many circumstances.

The key lesson to be learned here is that bondage is easy and that liberty is strenuous. It would be so easy to let the government make all my decisions for me and to provide me with my basic necessities. Everything that I need and in return I give them the minimum of what I can make them think are my abilities. Wouldn’t life be much easier then? Shouldn’t everyone do that?

As a friend of mine explained, “Here. Have this piece of candy. It tastes really good. It causes cancer and it will kill you 20 years from now but for now it tastes really good.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Diane S. Sykes

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The City considers live firing-range training so critical to responsible firearm ownership that it mandates this training as a condition of lawful firearm possession. At the same time, however, the City insists in this litigation that range training is categorically outside the scope of the Second Amendment and may be completely prohibited. There is an obvious contradiction here.

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
[One never hears claims that the anti-gun people are too smart or that their logic is impeccable. It’s nice to see judges and the general public coming to the realization that these guys are mostly nuts and should be treated as such.—Joe]

Jesus the Socialist

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This has come up over and over, but then the leftist playbook is only about four pages, and those are all double-spaced.  If you have to lobby for your B.S. for 150 years without pause, you end up being very repetitive.  When your repetitions are all lies, you also end up looking both stupid and insane, which of course makes a good enough definition of socialism right there.  This was my comment over there;

I never read the whole Bible, but I did see the movie. [back when I was a kid]
If Jesus ever lobbied the Roman government, calling for forced redistribution and centralized control, I haven’t heard of it.  Let’s demand that the socialists point us to that passage in the Bible.  He didn’t lobby the government employees to form public employees’ unions who would then take to the streets, calling for revolution if they didn’t get their way, did he?  Let’s see THAT part in the Bible.  (if Jesus did that, he must have been a dumb jerk anyway, and I wouldn’t listen to him)

If we were put here with free will, then forcing “charity” takes away that free will along with the distinction between those who give willingly and those who “give” only under threats from the government.

The socialists know all this of course, so let’s not make the mistake of taking their gibberish seriously– they’re just making up lies to sow doubt among the less attentive of Christians.  The only time we should ever take socialists at their word is when they’re making their threats.  They have a long history of carrying out the most outrageous of threats.  In that case we must be very serious in our resolve to defeat them.  Otherwise, socialism is nothing but a sick joke.

When Jesus shows up in person, dressed in a black ninja outfit with his own team of storm troopers to take my property, I’ll believe he was a socialist.  Until then; Girls, you be trippin’.  I’ll go with Douglas Adams’ definition of Jesus; “A man who got nailed to a tree for suggesting we be nice to people.”  I suppose today he’d be labeled a “terrorist” and the Brits would shut down his Twitter and FaceBook accounts.

Planting seeds in Canada

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About 1996 I was working as a contractor for Microsoft on DirectX video drivers. Some guys came from ATI (later purchased by AMD) in Toronto to learn how to write drivers for themselves. I was the guy they were assigned to.

In my office I had an USPSA and other targets with bullet holes in them. DeVerne expressed an interest in the targets and I offered to take him to the range. He quickly agreed and he shot my Ruger P-89 and a rented .22 pistol. I don’t remember a whole lot about it except I remember that as we were leaving he said something to the effect of, “That is the most fun I have ever had.” I was a little surprised and suppressed a snide remark about a guy as smart him having not discovered sex yet.

He checked into things and reported back that he could get a pistol if he went through some paperwork hoops. Hmmm… he might actually be serious about this.

I hadn’t thought much about it in a long time but then I got an email from him about a month ago:

Hey, Joe.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1996/97. Remember that dude DeVerne from ATI who was stuck in your cube at Microsoft “’cause Canadians don’t like guns”, but turned out to be OK with guns, and actually worked?

I see from your blog you are still enjoying the shootin’ sports. And you seem to spend part of your time in Seattle. I am going to be in Redmond for a (no doubt) enjoyable and illuminating conference/meeting on Windows 8, and I thought if you found it convenient, we could have a coffee and shoot a deadly paper target or two.

And then I’d ask you all about good area gun stores, since I have become a ISSF pistol shooter in the past 8 years.

DeVerne

In the following emails I discovered:

Went to the Canadian National Handgun Championships, got 1 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze. Did not make the Paralympic team  🙁

http://www.aha.abshooters.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=155

Uhhh…. Wow!

Paralympic? Hmmm… I wondered what that was about.

We got together last Thursday and went off to the range. He put a few magazines full through my STI. He said mostly he wanted to show me that he was a better shot than he was the first time we went to the range:

WP_000157

He was. And that was when he shot nothing but one handed Bull’s-eye style. But what impressed me more than his shooting was that he now owns about 40 guns! His collection includes rifles and handguns both very old and very new.

I asked about the prosthetic foot. He told me it was new since I had seen him last but the story was far less interesting than he would have liked it to have been for the price paid. It turns out the foot has an unexpected advantage to his shooting sports. It puts him in a different class of shooters and instead of being a middle of the road ordinary shooter he is a very good handicapped shooter. Hence the metals in the National Championship match.

I said would give him a link to Breda, the only other shooter I know with a detachable appendage.

I planted the seeds of a monster and now he is corrupting Canada from the inside. In Toronto even! Smile

Splash

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In case you ever wondered why, when shooting steel plates, bullet jackets sometimes come back but not the core of the bullet. Here, at 1,000,000 frames per second, is an explanation. Awesome video:

Via email from Erick P. at work.

Quote of the day—Solomon Friedman

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Those that voluntarily submit themselves to licensing and training requirements, register their firearms, store them legally, are in fact subject to, in some ways, to more strict regulation than individuals that are convicted of violent firearms offenses.

Solomon Friedman
August 12, 2011
Collector, Not Criminal
[This is in Canada, not the U.S., but some of the things he says apply to people who hold a Federal Firearms License. Is it too much to ask that firearms owners exercising their natural right to keep and bear arms be treated no worse than violent criminals and pedophiles?

If I have the time later today I have some interesting info to report about my efforts to defeat the anti-gun people in Canada.—Joe]

Security theater numbers

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Why do they even try to fool us? The numbers are overwhelming in support of the claim that TSA stands for A Security Theater:

More than 10 percent of the TSA’s identification badges have errors that could compromise airport security, a new audit has found.

Omissions and inaccuracies ranging from birthdates and birthplaces to incorrect assessments of security threats abound in identification badges assigned to the approximately 900,000 people who have unescorted access to secure areas of airports, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security inspector general.

…

Each year, the Transportation Security Authority oversees the vetting of approximately 550,000 badge applications.

There are nearly 1,000,000 people with unescorted access to secure areas of airports. Once inside the secure area they can travel to the secure area any other public airport in the country without having their credentials checked. Is anyone going to seriously try to convince me that not one in a million people is susceptible to black-mail, extortion, and/or threats against themselves or their family such that people will ill intent could not use them to gain access?

How much time can background investigators spend to vet those 550,000 applications? As the report says, they aren’t doing a very good job and it’s not surprising.

TSA—It is A Security Theater.

Quote of the day—Rick Perry

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We don’t see the role of government as guaranteeing outcomes, but allowing free men and women to flourish based on their own vision, their hard work and their personal responsibility.

Rick Perry
Texas Governor
August 13, 2011
Texas Gov. Perry jumps into 2012 Republican race
[Those are the right words to get my vote. But I have a feeling those same words absolutely inflame some people. The same sentence that included the quote above completed with, “said Perry, who has never held a private sector job…”

How does what Perry said relate to a “private sector job”? It appears to me the reporter was just looking for some way to draw some blood from Perry. And, of course, like most people on the left the truth is of little importance if a falsehood serves their purpose better. It appears Perry was in the cotton farming business from 1977 until 1984.—Joe]

The War Got Us Out of the Depression?

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That’s the claim.  World War Two got us out of the Great Depression.  It’s become an almost Pavlovian response.  Mention the end of the Great Depression, and the pre-programmed, rapid-fire response is “The-War-got-us-out-of-it!”  Ring the bell and the socialist dogs drool.  No thought about how such a thing could be– Just blind faith that it was so.

I heard one of the talk shows hosts (I think it was Limbaugh) bring this up recently.  The very same people who claim that W.W. II “got-us-out-of-the-Depression” are now the ones claiming that the current “Bush Lied, People Died/Inside Job” wars are dragging down the economy.  I don’t think the socialists can have it both ways.  We have troops in active fighting in what, four countries now?  I lost count, and it’s not “fighting” anymore, but “Kinetic Somethingorother” anyway.  We should be doing great about now if their Keynesian economic theories are correct.

Sure.  Just try this experiment with your own business or family; apply all your best efforts, using all your best resources, to build all your best products, for four years, go deeply into debt doing it, and then package up all of that best stuff, along with all your best workers, and send them overseas to be expended with no compensation.  Then build new houses for a German family and a Japanese family, going further into debt to do that, while you engage in years of litigation and appeals with a Russian family with no clear outcome.  See how rich you are at the end of it.

You can’t advocate two opposite ideologies at the same time.  One negates the other.  Either Keynesian theory is spot on, or it’s crazy.  Your perpetual motion machine either works or it doesn’t work.  Don’t claim both or you’ll look even more blitheringly stupid than you looked when you only said your perpetual motion machine generated a net energy output (oops; I’m assuming you know what “net energy output” means, which, if you believe in Keynesian economics, you don’t. Sorry).

PS.  I read several years ago that we don’t have “Infantry” anymore.  Oh no.  That would be much too.. “yesterday”.  Now we have a “Soldier-centric Force Structure” so it’s all new and shiny, you see.  Makes all the difference in the world.  To a moron.

Since having a “War Department” to fight real enemies sounded too unfriendly, and we now have the “Defense Department” and “Peace-Keeping Forces” instead, I figure it won’t be long before we have the “Department of Peace” that will bomb the shit out of you if you advocate liberty.  You’d better hope that the Peace Squad never shows up in your neighborhood.  It’ll be a bunch of government hippies shooting up your private flower pots.  Or something.

Of academic interest only

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This is of no practical use to me but it might be of interest to a few of my readers:

Penis length cannot be determined by how big his hands or feet are — those and other supposed indicators have been widely discredited for years. But now a team of Korean researchers has produced what may be a more reliable guide: the ratio of the length of his index finger to that of his ring finger. The lower that ratio, the longer the penis may be, the researchers wrote Monday in the Asian Journal of Andrology.

That is the shorter the index finger in relation to the ring finger the more likely the man’s penis will be longer.

There is something else that ratio supposedly indicates:

The ratio of length between a man’s second and fourth fingers (2D:4D) is thought to be linked to the amount of testosterone he received in the womb. According to new research, it also shows something else: How attractive a man’s face will be to women.

The research looked at the relationship between the 2D:4D ratio, how attractive women thought the face was, and other signs associated with attraction and testosterone production: body smell and voice.

Men with a lower 2D:4D ratio (shorter pointer and longer ring fingers) were thought by the subjects to be more attractive, have more “masculine” features, and have more symmetrical faces.

Posted in Sex

Quote of the day—Henry Mencken

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Every government is a scoundrel.

Henry Mencken
[Of course. What do you expect when people exercise the power to collect money at the point of a gun instead of earning it? Who but a scoundrel is attracted to a job like that?

Government is a necessary evil and as Jefferson (perhaps mistakenly—note 1), Thoreau, and Baker have said that government is best which governs less.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Violence Policy Center

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Although the majority of Americans favor stricter handgun controls, and a consistent 40 percent of Americans favor banning the private sale and possession of handguns, many Americans do believe that handguns are effective weapons for home self-defense and the majority of Americans mistakenly believe that the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Violence Policy Center
1988
Conclusion to Assault Weapons & Accessories in America
[It wasn’t a majority of Americans that were mistaken in their beliefs about the Second Amendment. It was the bigoted minority—like those that supported the VPC and the Brady Campaign and would not believe us no matter how many times we told them and explained it to them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Diane S. Sykes

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Both Heller and McDonald suggest that First Amendment analogues are more appropriate, see Heller, 554 U.S. at 582, 595, 635; McDonald, 130 S. Ct. at 3045, and on the strength of that suggestion, we and other circuits have already begun to adapt First Amendment doctrine to the Second Amendment context.

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
[This occurred over a month ago but the taste is still incredibly sweet. The Second Amendment is to be treated like the First Amendment. Learn to use that analogy when you have discussion with the anti-gun people. If we learn to use it correctly I’ll bet it will have a great effect on them.

And to give yourself a nice warm glow read up on “chilling effect” and ponder those implications.—Joe]