The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.
Daniel Webster
[And it continues to this day.—Joe]
Just in time for Christmas
It’s a pink pistol from Olympic Arms:
The also have pink furniture for your AR (currently on the main page; I couldn’t find the details):
Helping them blow a fuse
I would just like to point out that the anti-gun bigots get all fired up, sputter, and generally blow a fuse and end up changing the subject when confronted with the most innocent of things. A case in point is this picture (available for sale here):
It reminds me of the racists who get all bent out of shape if they see a black man holding hands or expressing affection with a white woman.
What’s the problem with these people? Oh yeah, I remember now. They are bigots.
The media isn’t all hostile to guns
I’m almost parroting what Kevin said but it’s important to know that you can get good media coverage of guns and gun owners if you have a good story to tell and present yourself well.
Mr. Completely demonstrates how it is done on the Seattle television station, KING.
A few years ago the same station did a great job with Boomershoot.
Quote of the day—Ludwig Boerne
The difference between Liberty and liberties is as great as between God and gods.
Ludwig Boerne
Fragmente and Aphorismen (1840)
[From The Great Thoughts (link is to the 2nd Edition, mine is the 1st Edition–1985)
I think this captures why “they” don’t get it when we say, “We don’t have Liberty.” “They” look as us funny and tell us, “You have lots of liberties.”—Joe]
Random thought of the day
Anyone who tries to tell me about the virtues of things being “natural” had better be wearing their birthday suit if they don’t want to be mocked.
Quote of the day—Ray Ash
how funny, two $6k rifles, two $2k rifles, $1k ammo, $1.5k worth of travel expenses going to the boomershoot, a week off work, lost $800 in winnemucca on the way up . . so about $500.00 worth of targets ??? . . i’ll get back to you and let you know how many we can make out of a sheet . . and those are my expenses, there are four of us in my truck…
Ray Ash
Via email on October 4, 2010
[Ray offered to make some steel targets for Boomershoot at no charge and asked how many I wanted. I said:
Free wouldn’t be right.
An equal quantity of Pepper Poppers and Mini-Poppers coming to a total of ~$500.
He thought what I said was funny. He could be right about that even though I didn’t intend it to be.—Joe]
Only Tamara could capture it so well
Wow!
That really does capture it:
All this is, is a text-adventure first-person-shooter. Zork meets Counterstrike.
Quote of the day—Wikipedia, Shaped charge
Most of the jet formed moves at hypersonic speed. The tip moves at 7 to 14 km/s, the jet tail at a lower velocity (1 to 3 km/s), and the slug at a still lower velocity (less than 1 km/s). The exact velocities are dependent on the charge’s configuration and confinement, explosive type, materials used, and the explosive-initiation mode. At typical velocities, the penetration process generates such enormous pressures that it may be considered hydrodynamic; to a good approximation, the jet and armor may be treated as incompressible fluids, with their material strengths ignored.
Wikipedia, Shaped charge
Emphasis added.
Found while Wikiwandering from a link at Roberta’s.
[“… may be treated as incompressible fluids, with their material strengths ignored”! That statement makes me light-headed and weak at the knees. The “7 to 14 km/s” doesn’t hurt either.
7 km/s is about 23,000 feet per second. Your .220 Swift is considered a very zippy cartridge but it only gives you about 4,100 feet per second at the muzzle. Hence a shaped charge gives you velocities 5 to 10 times that of a .220 Swift at the muzzle. This is considered high-hypersonic to re-entry speeds.
I have books on computer simulation of shaped charges. I really need to write the software then do some field testing. Supposedly it is pretty easy to punch through three feet of reinforced concrete. I have some large rocks out in the middle of some fields I’d like to experiment with.—Joe]
Windows Phone 7
According to USA Today Windows Phone 7 is launching on October 11:
It’s about to be put up or shut up time for Microsoft in mobile. On October 11, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets CEO Ralph de la Vega will be conducting a New York City press conference to spill the beans on the widely anticipated Windows Phone 7 smartphones.
I’m looking forward to being able to buy my own Windows Phone 7. The engineering development hardware I’ve been carrying around for the last year always seems to have something wrong with it that “will be fixed before it’s released”. Some had great sound and camera but poor Wi-Fi reception. Others had great Wi-Fi but poor GPS reception. It was good enough for development but now I’m ready for the real thing.
I know some people that need a new phone for Christmas too. It’ll be awesome.
Full disclosure: I work for Microsoft on the Windows Phone 7 project.
Japete IS lying about this
If you recall a few days ago I defended Joan Peterson (aka japete) against a charge of lying. I still believe I was correct; the best explanation for the available data on that topic was that it was a mental defect rather than a willful lie.
Today I present evidence that she is willingly and knowingly lying about something else.
If you read her blog you will find many instances where she claims or implies she and her organizations don’t wish to ban firearms. Here are some examples:
- And then there have been those who have accused me and the people with whom I work of banning guns when they know it isn’t true and couldn’t realistically happen.
- Do you believe that I and people with whom I work intend to ban your guns?
- Whenever I write about real people and suggest that we can do something to prevent real people from being shot to death or injured, I have been attacked for lying, trying to ban guns, for being naive, for providing “anecdotes”, for not knowing what I am writing about, for being a shill, etc. No wonder President Obama backs away. It is not easy to fight against this kind of false reasoning and name calling. Bullying and harassing I call it.
- “A general theme also seems to be that japete’s side wants to ban guns. Come on folks – we’re talking the banning of LEGALLY PROHIBITED PERSONS ONLY from obtaining guns. What’s so hard about that to understand? Probably 99.99% of all firearms are mfg’d and sold lawfully (not sure how straw buyers affect that percentage). Otherwise it is the “law abiding” gun owner, and the secondary market which is the source of crime guns.” Duh. This is a no-brainer, folks. Thanks for this comment.
- banning guns is “off the table”;
Also note that Ms. Peterson acknowledges she is on the Brady Campaign board of directors.
I have often given the Brady Campaign a pass in regards to errors and old material on their website. I know I have lots of out of date material on my websites and I have changed my mind about things but not bother to take down the old position. With all the material from the Brady Campaign saying “total bans are off the table” you might take that to mean they are interested in banning firearms anymore. This is not true.
You need to watch their wording very carefully to notice that since the Heller decision they say they are not advocating a “total ban on handguns”. One must presume that a partial ban would be quite agreeable with them. And one can be certain they are still in favor of an “assault weapon” ban:
Boxer supports California’s ban on assault weapons and the revival of a similar law at the federal level. Fiorina has criticized the federal law’s definition of assault weapons as “extremely arbitrary” and emphasizes other ways of combating gun crimes, none of which is a substitute for a ban. She also believes that travelers on the federal government’s no-fly list should be allowed to own firearms.
We couldn’t agree more with the Times on this one.
Learn more about assault weapons and terror gap, and visit our elections page.
And from their position web page on “assault weapons” linked to in the previous quote:
POSITION: The Brady Campaign supports banning military-style semi-automatic assault weapons along with high-capacity ammunition magazines. These dangerous weapons have no sporting or civilian use. Their combat features are appropriate to military, not civilian, contexts.
PROBLEM: The federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in the fall of 2004.
THE THREAT: Allowing easy access to highly lethal, military-style weapons by dangerous people, like terrorists and felons, threatens the safety of our police officers, families and communities.
URGENCY: Since the ban expired, police chiefs across the country report increases in assault weapons used in crime and used against them.
SOLUTION: Congress must pass strong, effective legislation to ban all military-style semi-automatic assault weapons along with high capacity ammunition magazines. In the short-term, more states must pass their own laws to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
As a board member Ms. Peterson had to know of the Brady Campaign position on “assault weapons”. I therefore have to apologize for being critical of all the bloggers and commenters who said Joan Peterson was lying.
Quote of the day—George Mason
That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the People, that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.
George Mason
June 12, 1776
Virginia Declaration of Rights
[The U.S. Constitution was heavily influenced by the Virginia Constitution. Remember, James Madison, the main architect of the U.S. Constitution was from Virginia. And Mason had his share of input to the Constitution as well.
The entire political philosophy of our country is based on government deriving it’s powers from the consent of the people. Hence I always find it a little irritating when someone refers to a politician as a ‘leader’ when they are actually servants.
It is more than a little irritating when the servants tell the People they are the only ones allowed to own and carry certain types of personal weapons.
And when the servants use the People’s credit to run up a massive debt giving money to people and organizations which they had no constitutional authority to give it it too it’s time to fire them and perhaps prosecute them.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Justice Antonin Scalia
hope I have made it clear that my belief that the use of foreign law in our constitutional decisions is the wave of the future does not at all suggest that I think it’s a good idea. I do not. The men who founded our republic did not aspire to emulating Europeans, much less the rest of the world.
I wrote an opinion for the Court a few terms back [Crawford v. Washington, 541 US 36 (2004)], overruling an earlier case [Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990)], which had held that the confrontation clause is satisfied so long as the unconfronted testimony – that is to say, hearsay testimony – has “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.” The opinion pointed out that that the confrontation clause was designed precisely to prevent a procedure considered trustworthy by continental European nations, and others that followed the civil law tradition. “Examinations of witnesses upon interrogatories,” wrote John Adams, “are only by the civil law; interrogatories are unknown at common law, and Englishment and common lawyers have an aversion to them, if not an abhorrence of them.” As recently as 1993, for example, France was still defending its use of ex parte testimony before the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the defendant’s accuser in a drug trafficking case had a “legitimate interest in remaining anonymous,” and that the defendant’s rights were adequately protected so long as “the judge held hearings which enabled him to satisfy himself” that the witnesses stood by their statements. Should we have loosened up our confrontation clause, in deference to foreign opinion on this subject?
France permits suits against the executive branch only in an executive branch court called the conseil d’etat, whose members are appointed and promoted by the executive, and who regularly alternate between performing executive functions and adjudicating the lawfulness of other people’s performance of executive functions. Other European countries have somewhat similar systems, although the extent of their participating in executive functions may be more limited. This is a practice that Tocqueville contrasted unfavorably with our own, as long ago as 1835. Should we change our mind?
In No. 46 of The Federalist, James Madison speaks contemptuously of the governments of Europe who are “afraid to trust their people with arms.” Should we revise the Second Amendment because of what these other countries think?
In November of 2002, the Council of Europe approved what was called “an additional protocol to the convention on cybercrime,” which would make it illegal to distribute anything online which “advocates, promotes or incites hatred.” A spokesman for the United States Department of Justice said – quite correctly – that this country could not be a party to such a treaty because of the First Amendment. If all of Europe thinks that such a provision does not unduly limit speech, should we reconsider? And I could go on.
If there was any thought absolutely foreign to the founders of our country, surely it was the notion that we Americans should be governed the way that Europeans are – and nothing has changed. I dare say that few of us here would like our life or liberty subject to the disposition of French or Italian criminal justice, not because those systems are unjust, but because we think ours is better. What reason is there to believe that other dispositions of a foreign country are so obviously suitable to the morals and beliefs of our people that they can be judicially imposed through constitutional adjudication? And is it really an appropriate function of judges to say which are and which aren’t? I think not.
Justice Antonin Scalia
February 21, 2006
Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute.
Emphasis added.
[If the founders of our country wanted the supreme law of our land to emulate Europe they could have done so. If people today want our laws to emulate Europe they can push through the constitutional amendments to make those changes. And if in the process they infringe on fundamental human rights they can deal with the consequences.—Joe]
Squirrel targets discounted
MGM has an Internet Special on their squirrel targets:
I wish they would tolerate .30 caliber. If they would then I would buy some for Boomershoot. MGM does have rifle targets but it’s more than I really want to spend right now.
All your Motorola Androids are belong to us
Yesterday Microsoft announced they have filed a lawsuit against Motorola alleging infringement on nine patents regarding Android smart phones:
REDMOND, Wash. – Oct. 1, 2010 – Microsoft Corp. today filed a patent infringement action against Motorola, Inc. and issued the following statement from Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing:
“Microsoft filed an action today in the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola, Inc. for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by Motorola’s Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.
We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market. Motorola needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its Android smartphones.”
More information can be found here. Even though I work for Microsoft on Windows Phone 7 I don’t have any further information on the topic and even if I did I wouldn’t be at liberty to discuss it.
Quote of the day—Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph
Magnificent…will terrify and appall jackbooted stormtroopers everywhere, and even more so the whimpering media geeks who squat to lick those boots.
Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph
1996
From the back cover of Unintended Consequences by John Ross.
[If you haven’t read Unintended Consequences then you don’t really understand the gun culture.—Joe]
MAIG mimics Brady Campaign errors
Mayors Against Illegal Guns did not make an innocent mistake when they released their recent report. They deliberated misused the data to arrive at a conclusion they wanted. It’s been explained to them many times before but the truth doesn’t matter to them. NRA-ILA explains once again:
MAIG’s conclusions, like Brady’s, are based entirely upon BATFE firearm tracing statistics, which BATFE and the Congressional Research Service have repeatedly said should not be used to reach broad conclusions about criminal activity with guns.
BATFE says, for example, “Not all firearms used in crimes are traced and not all firearms traced are used in crime. Firearms selected for tracing aren’t chosen for purposes of determining which types, makes or models of firearms are used for illicit purposes. The firearms selected don’t constitute a random sample and should not be considered representative of the larger universe of all firearms used by criminals, or any subset of that universe. . . .[S]ources reported for firearms traced do not necessarily represent the sources or methods by which firearms in general are acquired for use in crime.”
Of course, for many years on many issues — “assault weapons,” “Saturday Night Specials,” lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers, and the list goes on — anti-gun groups have resorted to tracing data because crime and other reliable data have not supported their arguments. In this instance, for example, MAIG contends that illegal acquisition of firearms is associated with 10 specific state-level gun laws. But, the 10 laws — some of which are already in effect at the federal level — don’t correlate to state total violent crime rates. And, the 10 states with the highest violent crime rates, and the 10 states with the lowest rates, both have an average of two of the 10 gun laws.
Update: James has more very interesting stuff to share on the topic.
Firearms Freedom Act news
The Brady Campaign has very little to feel good about these days so they are doing a lot of crowing about the Federal district court judge who dismissed the Montana Firearms Freedom Act case.
While most observers agree that we will not win this case that doesn’t mean it is a losing action. As I said in the comments over at Say Uncle’s place:
From the Missoulian
“We’ve believed all along that the federal District Court cannot grant the relief we request. We seek to overturn a half-century of bad precedent,” Gary Marbut, MSSA president, said in a statement. “Only the U.S. Supreme Court can do that. In that light, the pending dismissal by the District Court means little except that we are now free to move to the next step of the process.”
The Brady Campaign may ultimately be able to claim victory but not without more work. They are crowing now because it will be a while before they can crow for a real victory.
…
I don’t think “restrictions are defeated before they start” via lots of guns is a workable strategy. As an example look at machine guns. There were lots of them in private hands prior to 1934 and now there aren’t. Also consider legislative attacks such as trigger locks, “safe storage” laws, restrictions on carry that start with schools and public buildings then progresses to banks, parks, churches, vehicles, and “public spaces”.
While the Firearms Freedom Act has a low chance of ultimate success it is an integrated part of the SAF firearms civil rights judicial strategy.
I used to play a lot of chess which gives us a way to view this. Suppose you have a slight material advantage say 15 pieces to their 12 pieces. You increase your odds of winning by trading down an equal number/quality of their pieces for yours. When the odds are 3 to 1 in your favor you are far better off than when you were at 15 to 12.
Think of it this way–we have far more money than the anti-gun side. Suppose we have 10 x as much money and resources as they do. Suppose they need to spend half as much as we do on each front as we do in order to defeat us. The more fronts we attack on the less they have to spend on any one front. Even if we attack on a front they can easily win they must spend resources on it. This makes it easier to win on more fronts.
By forcing them to divide their resources we can create much better odds for success on each of the individual attacks because we have sufficient resources that our multiple attacks do not suffer from division.
There are other reasons as well but discussion of those in public would not be in our best interests.
Please add to that what Idaho Governor Butch Otter said about the ruling:
Governor Otter said that decision is consistent with Molloy’s wolf ruling, and together they highlight the lack of regard that the judge has for states’ rights under the 10th Amendment.
“We’re hopeful that we’ll find some relief from the appellate court,” he said. “But if not, we’ll keep fighting to protect our right to self-determination.”
Quote of the day—Lyle@UltiMAK
I’d rather pay most feds to do nothing (or snort coke, watch daytime TV, drink booze and buy whores) than pay them to do what they’re doing now (in addition to snorting coke, drinking booze and buying whores that is). That’d be a step in the right direction, say, for a while, before they’re indicted.
If I had my full ‘druthers I’d see them stripped of their citizenship, packed into crates, stuffed into transport planes, flown over Venezuela (or Cuba, North Korea, etc.) and dropped, along with their supporters in Congress. Parachutes optional, depending on donations from the private sector. I’d suggest using them on the front lines in battle, but I wouldn’t trust them in that capacity. They’d most likely throw up the white flags and then side with the enemy against our real troops. The whole tar and feathers thing seems unnecessarily messy and time consuming. We have work to do after all, and if we could simply get rid of them as quickly as possible, we could get on with living our lives in peace. If they’d go voluntarily and then mind their own business for the rest of their lives, that would be the ideal, though we all know that’s an impossibility – statists, who understand nothing on Earth but deception and brute force don’t ever quit until quitting is the only option left. Even then, we see what happened with Jim Jones and his dupes. If they know they’re going to take the big fall, they’ll take as many as possible along with them. That’s axiomatic and it goes for the whole statist society.
Lyle@UltiMAK
September 30, 2010
Comment to Random thought of the day.
[The only thing I would add is they should get a fair trial first. But I guess that was sort of implied in the “stripped of their citizenship” line. And please note that each individual need not have their own trial. They don’t seem to have any regard for the individual so why should the individual have any regard for them independently of their collective? It probably could done at the department/agency level. Department of Education, Department of Housing, etc.—Joe]
Random thought of the day
Remember how the Feds needed to find a new job for the “Revenuers” after the repeal of prohibition and they were given the regulation of firearms with NFA34?
We should do the same thing with the ATF by retasking them with the regulation legal sale of marijuana as we go through the process of reducing Federal regulation of firearms.
The DEA? Those that can’t get a real job can just go beg on the street corner with a sign around their neck that says “Former DEA Agent”.