They just don’t get it

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This is from an Australian reporter who attended the NRA Convention:

NRA defies hopes for gun control in America

ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: After the deadly shooting in Tucson, Arizona earlier this year which claimed six lives and injured a congresswoman, gun control advocates were convinced they’d have some weight behind their argument for tighter gun laws in the United States, and they say the US president is finally speaking up.
But there appears to be little tangible change to the gun culture in America. If anything, one of the most formidable political lobby groups, the National Rifle Association, appears to be more confident that it’s winning the fight against gun control.

…

LISA MILLAR: But while the enthusiasts keep turning up here and at the polling booths, it may be that the hopes of gun control advocates proof elusive yet again.

If it were convention for gay rights would they use words like, “The hopes of homophobes and gay bashers prove elusive yet again.”?

How can they not see their own bias and bigotry?

Boomershoot special events

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In addition to the boomers people shoot we do a few special things as well. The opening fireball (when it worked) and anvil launch have been regular features for years. For a couple of years we had a bowling ball mortar. This year we had three bowling ball mortars.

Here is a video of the special features:

I didn’t realize the fireball set off a car alarm until I viewed this video.

Lewiston Pistol Club Appleseed Rifle Marksman Clinic

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Via email from Adam M.

The Lewiston Pistol Club will host an Appleseed Rifle Marksman Clinic at the Bernie Petersen Memorial Range on May 14-15, 2011.  The entire range will be reserved from 8 – 5 on Saturday and Sunday (May 14-15). 

The Appleseed Clinic focuses on the basics of good marksmanship – sight alignment, sight picture, breath control, trigger control and follow through.  Interspersed with the shooting, the Clinic leaders deliver an oral history of April 19th, 1775 – the day the shot heard around the world was fired on the Lexington green. 

The Appleseed Clinic is an excellent introduction to rifles for youth and beginners.  But even old hands have trouble passing the graduation exam – the Army Qualification Test.  The final target is the size of a postage stamp at 25 meters.  Think that’s an easy shot?  Come show us how it’s done!
•    General information on Appleseed: http://www.appleseedinfo.org/index.html
•    LPC Appleseed Clinic information: http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=18878.0
•    LPC Appleseed Registration: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1080526885
•    Information on what to bring: http://www.appleseedinfo.org/as_prepare.html

If you have any questions regarding the Appleseed Project or specifics for coming that day, please contact Larry Cernik at r.contender@juno.com.

If you have any questions regarding the LPC portion of the Appleseed Clinic, please contact me at action@lewistonpistol.org.

This is the Lewiston Idaho Pistol Club in case you are wondering.

Gun cartoon of the day

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This certainly seems to be the way it works:

WhatAntiGunnersHear

I’m not sure if it is deliberate or they simply lack the mental facility to process information correctly.

Cartoon via email from Barron.

Quote of the day—W. Scott Lewis

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Despite all of the media hype, all of the fear mongering, and all of the misinformation, a vast majority of the Texas Senators tasked with researching and voting on this issue opted for empirical evidence over emotional rhetoric.

W. Scott Lewis
May 9, 2011
Texas Legislative Director, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
PRESS RELEASE: TEXAS SENATE PASSES CONCEALED CARRY ON CAMPUS BILL
[Sebastian also got a copy of the release.

Empirical evidence. It’s odd how difficult it is to get people to consider that.

Oh well. Another step closer to total victory.—Joe]

Quote of the day—George Orwell

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That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.

George Orwell
[I slightly disagree. It is a symbol of the ultimate power residing in the hands of the general population rather than solely in the hands of the despot or the well connected. Those that seek and exercise power to their own advantage will always exist and will always take advantage of those that are less powerful. But the rifle on the wall creates limits such that truly epic injustice is unlikely to occur because of the fear by the powerful and their thugs that their reign of terror will be ended by a bullet. And if it does occur the rifle guarantees it will not long continue.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Now that the U.S. has established the precedent of sending a hit squad into another country to kill those wanted for planning and implementing acts which resulted in the deaths of our citizens I wonder if the Mexican government will consider that justification for doing the same to those responsible for sending firearms to drug cartels in Mexico.

Quote of the day—Ry Jones

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I figure it’s like when you go to a Gallagher show and sit in the front row. You bring your rain coat because you know what is going to happen with those watermelons. Well… the Boomershoot fireball is like that. Those people don’t have anything to complain about.

Ry Jones
May 1, 2011
[Ry and I had an “after action” discussion about Boomershoot 2011. The opening fireball was among the topics discussed.

What most people don’t know about that fireball is that it almost didn’t work. If you play back the video frame-by-frame you will find that nearly all the road flares went out. You can also see this from the pictures afterward. There are only about three or four flares still burning. Which leads us to the runner up for the QOTD, by Ry again, “If you had told me a week ago I would be putting out road flares with gasoline I would never have believed you.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Paul Helmke

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In yet another sign of how out of touch it is with how people interact in a civilized society, the National Rifle Association is apparently so wrapped up in its paranoid view of the world that it planted an undercover cameraman at our news conference at the National Press Club on Wednesday when the Brady Campaign released its annual Scorecard of State gun laws that can help reduce gun violence.

Paul Helmke
May 6, 2011
NRA Didn’t Have To Spy: Their Deadly Agenda Is Out
[I wasn’t aware that news conferences were intended to be secret and that if someone showed up without being specifically invited they were considered a “spy”.

I guess that shows how out of touch I am with how people interact in a civilized society as well. Or maybe is shows it is the Brady Campaign which is paranoid instead of the NRA.—Joe]

Soldier’s Angels donation

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Every year we have a raffle at the Boomershoot dinner. The raffle items are donated by various companies and individuals. This year NightForce donated a rifle scope which was the highlight of the raffle. There were also items such as a shooting bench, AR-15 magazines, shooting glasses, and many, many other items.

The proceeds of the raffle went to Soldier’s Angels. Here is the report from my bank on the donation:

Payee Reference # Send On Deliver By Amount
Soldiers’ Angels 6BFBXMRY  05/03/2011 05/10/2011 $1,592.00

For those of you who listened closely at the dinner this is more than the amount actually raised and given to me. A Boomershooter quietly slipped me another $230 to give to Soldier’s Angels and Gene Econ added another $100.

Random thought of the day

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The anti-gun side uses the word “loophole”, as in “gun show loophole” to great advantage. I think we should adopt their tactic.

We don’t have a regulatory agency for speech, religion, assembly, or association so why do we have one for arms? The “F” in “ATF” exists only because of a loophole in U.S. law. We need to plug the loophole by unplugging the ATF from Federal funding.

If the states want their own regulatory agency then let them fund them and we will battle their existence and scope as needed in the courts.

Quote of the day—David Hardy

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While opinions may vary, I’ve always thought that undercover operations should stop short of committing acts of war.

David Hardy
May 5, 2011
Project Gunwalker getting bigger
[I love understated humor.—Joe]

Sleep is good

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I haven’t posted much recently. Boomershoot is pretty much all consuming for me. Last night was the first opportunity to get a full nights sleep since last Wednesday. I slept almost 12 hours. I feel much better now.

There will be more regular blog posts in the near future.

Quote of the day—Clint Smith

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You can say ‘stop’ or ‘alto’ or use any other word you think will work, but I’ve found that a large bore muzzle pointed at someone’s head is pretty much the universal language.

Clint Smith
Director of Thunder Ranch
[This is very similar to something Greg Hamilton said. I agree with both. If you need to stop an attack the one method that works more reliably than any other is a gun pointed at the attacker.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ted Nugent

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You need to talk guns all the time. You need to talk hunting all the time. The gun community should be all about public relations. We haven’t turned up the heat enough yet.

Ted Nugent
May 1, 2011
We must turn up the heat against ‘America hating’ Obama and the gun control lobby, says Ted Nugent
[Yup.—Joe]

Most awesome Boomershoot fireball ever

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Ry topped his last whooper of a fireball which was in 2007. This was the most awesome one yet. There was 7.5 gallons of gasoline, 12 pounds of Boomerite, 16 road flares, many feet of PVC pipe and one bullet involved. Click on the pictures below to get higher resolution versions.

IMG_5182
Lyle@UltiMak and Ry ignited the flares. Then Lyle shot the explosives.

Ry speculated the PVC pipe would survive to be used again next year.

IMG_5187 IMG_5188 IMG_5189
IMG_5190 IMG_5191 IMG_5192
IMG_5193 IMG_5194 IMG_5195
IMG_5196 IMG_5197 IMG_5198
IMG_5211IMG_5213
Ry took a bow to all the cheers and applause.
IMG_5230
Ry was wrong about the PVC pipe.

Update: Ry has comments and this video:

Update2: Nice picture and automated .GIF here (along with a general Boomershoot 2011 report from some of my staff that put in the most hours). And more video:

Quote of the day—Erica@ATF

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I want to take a nap just from listening to you talk.

Erica@ATF
May 2, 2011
[Erica@ATF showed up at my house at 8:44 this morning. That was 16 minutes early and I wasn’t quite ready for her but it worked out okay. We went out to the Boomershoot site and she did her measurements of steel thicknesses and distances to houses and roads. The only deficiency she asked me to correct was the insect screen on a vent (which I told her about before we got to the magazine and the unpainted steel bolts poking into the “Meadow One” (original at the tree line). The repair of the insect screen will take about five minutes to fix and I told her I would just remove the old magazine since we don’t really use it anyway.

As to the nap comment above at first I thought she was saying I was boring but then she said something about all the things I had been doing for Boomershoot and still had to get done before I could drive back to the Seattle area this evening.

Yes. Boomershoot sucks up a lot of time. The last several days I would wake at 4:00 AM get then finally give up on going back to sleep at 6:00 AM and work until roughly 5:00 PM. Then socialize with the staff and Boomershooters until late. I would finally get to bed about 11:00 PM to start all over again.

It was worth it. I’ll link to some of the blog posts others have been making in a day or three. Making people happy and Brady Campaign creatures unhappy makes me happy.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Ignatieff

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No one can be serious about public safety unless they are serious about gun control. That’s an essential element in any balanced approach to public safety, which is a concern to people in the Lower Mainland and Canadians from coast to coast.

Michael Ignatieff
Canadian Liberal leader
April 26, 2011
[Interesting that he says that it’s an “essential element.” And the evidence for that is where? He might as well be saying “ni**er/Jew/Muslim/homosexual control is an essential element of  public safety”. I’m nearly certain it would be easier to find data to support my version than his. Yet even if the evidence supported such claims the answer in any case must be not only, “No,” but “Hell no!”—Joe]

And so it begins

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After going to sleep about 11:30 last night I woke up about 4:00 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep. Last night I told son-in-law Caleb that we should leave by 7:00 AM so I have a little time to blog before loading the last of my stuff in my 4×4 and heading out to the Boomershoot site. I will probably continue to lack sleep until Sunday night when I will also have very sore muscles and have lost eight to ten pounds (I checked in a 202.8 pounds last night before going to bed). And friends and co-workers keep telling me, “Have fun at Boomershoot!” It’s not “fun” for me. “Rewarding” is a better word.

Four of my staff from out of state have checked in and will be ready to start preparing the site for the shooters shortly after I arrive. Others will arrive at various times throughout the day. My biggest task is delegating and communicating what I want done. It helps that I have staff that have done this for several years and don’t need much direction. But still, just keeping the tasks queued up is sometimes challenging because I want to do something just a little bit different than previously and I need to explain it or they need materials I haven’t got delivered to the proper location yet.

The site got more rain last night than I expected but the forecast is looking pretty good. It will be wet and messy out there for a few hours and perhaps all day today. The winds will be up to 15 MPH today too. That will help dry out the ground but it will be cold with the temperature never getting about 43F.

Quote of the day—meus_ovatio

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I don’t think Mr. Huffman is capable, much less trustworthy, of “protecting innocent life”.

meus_ovatio
April 26, 2011
Comment to Democracy vs Totalitarianism: Hiding Godwin in the closet.
[It’s odd how people who have never met me or my family think they are qualified to make such sweeping statements with such certainty. But it shouldn’t be surprising. There are large numbers of people that find facts and reason obstacles to their belief systems. This is just one more example.—Joe]