Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.
Simone Weil
[There was once a time, not so long ago, where people could not choose marriage partners where the skin color didn’t match. In most state people still can’t marry if the genders do match. This is not liberty.
The government in many states forbids the use of noise suppressors on firearms but requires their use on cars. This is not liberty either.—Joe]
Last Wednesday Senate Candidate Dino Rossi came to Microsoft and I went to listen to him talk and answer questions. I thought he did quite well. The Microsoft crowd has a strong tendency to be liberal. And his incumbent opponent has been considered the most liberal in the U.S. Senate. And as Rossi pointed out that when she has admitted socialists and people like Nancy Pelosi for competition in that contest that says a lot about her. The crowd was polite and listened. Almost his entire point was the financial crisis our country is in. His credentials are a degree in business with successful business ventures as proof. Then he took the lead in getting Washington state’s budget balanced several years ago.
When someone asked what he would do about the tax penalty that the questioner and his partner (it was worded such that it was pretty clear they were a homosexual couple) suffer that married couple don’t. Rossi had what seemed to be a satisfactory answer. He said he hadn’t really thought about it but he certainly would if it came up. And that it is rare that he would turn down an opportunity to reduce taxes so the chances are probably good that he would support something like that.
He didn’t mention guns at all. It’s probably just as well—particularly in that venue. He should let others tell that story. Here is an example of what his opponent says about guns. No one has ever accused her of being smart.
Here is what the NRA has to say about Rossi:
Update: I just heard a survey result on the radio. Rossi leads by 1%. In a state where King County (the Seattle area which is very liberal) sometimes reports more votes than registered voters this isn’t a big enough lead. Even in a fair election this margin is in the noise. We need to increase the margin. People will start voting in a few days (everyone votes by mail in Washington State) and the time is now to help Dino Rossi. See also the comment here from Boyd.
I think it might behoove you to get some psychiatric help. Work on your bigotry, your fear of firearms, your self-control issues, and your curious fixation on things penile. Also your hatred of your fellow man. If you don’t, you might end up strapping on a firearm and calling out an 80-year-old a**hole who might blow your penis off with his .45 in self-defense.
Trust me, I know some old guys who can SHOOT.
Kevin Baker
October 11, 2010
Proprietor, http://smallestminority.blogspot.com
[It was almost exactly four years ago in Reno when I articulated my assertion to a collection of bloggers that we needed to change our attitude in regards to our status as gun owners. Kevin was there when I gave my little speech. I didn’t get any disagreement but I’m not sure that many people agreed with me either. I said some things that I think were a little alien to them:
When you post on a gun rights issues, when you write your letter to the editor, your congressman, or your senator you have to have the proper state of mind. Never forget that the anti-gun bigots are the KKK of the 21st Century. Look for opportunities to make that point. Make belonging to the Brady Campaign the equivalent of a membership in the KKK because it’s true.
Today this one bigot got not only the attention of my blog and several gun forums but the attention of other bloggers in addition to Kevin who explained to this guy that he was being a bigot far better than I did. I would also like to give special attention Linoge for properly pointing out that this particular bigot is another example of Markley’s law.
It all brings a smile to my face.
Update: More bloggers piling on the bigot meme with this guy:
Social pressure and shame is what it is going to take to push the gun control agenda completely off the table and into the dustbin of history. Let’s keep it up.—Joe]
Via Ry we find more Reasoned Discourse:
They pretty much confirmed my attitudes about gun-toters.
My OS postings rarely get feedback, so I wondered why so many comments showed up in just a day or two.
That’s when Google found this thread:
http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/showthread.php?81683-Blog-post-from-an-AZ-anti
Yikes.
My personal blog is mirrored here at OS, and I don’t allow comments there, so they actually tracked me down here.
It looks like they cruise the web, trying to pick fights.
So I’ve closed the comments here at Open Salon.
It’s sad, but I certainly don’t want to engage with people like them.
“People like them”? If I didn’t know better from that line I would think he was talking about people with different colored skin or homosexuals.
I guess he doesn’t understand the failure of censorship in an Internet world; but then bigots are seldom bright.
Whenever some anti-gun advocate says something to the effect that people carrying their personal defensive tools are trying to live out a fantasy and they would never be able to use them in a real situation anyway we should invite them to play a game of laser tag to confirm their claims in regards to a mass shooting situation.
Arm about 10% of the potential victims and then let the anti-gun bad guy see how far they can make it as they try to play “postman” in the mall, schoolroom, or crowded health club. Repeat without the potential victims being armed. Compare the results and then discuss which scenario played out better for the potential victims.
If they refuse to play then tell them they are living a fantasy and are unwilling to gather and process factual data.
This day is supposed to be some sort of special environmental day. But “no pressure”. They will just blow you up and splatter your body parts all over the room if you don’t go along with their agenda.
As the UK’s Telegraph says, “The environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness.”
I see.
I would like for the environmental movement to know that they aren’t the only ones with explosives. And guns. Don’t forget the guns. And also, I have earth moving equipment. If needed I can bury bodies very, very deep.
So, with that in mind some friends and I went out and did a little practicing.
First we dug up the dirt. This was the first time Barron had driven a bulldozer. Here he porpoises through the dirt but later he was doing fine.
Here is the end result (after I smoothed things out):
As you can see there is room for lots of bodies should the environmentalist get as aggressive as they are threatening to do. And not only can we dig up the earth to dispose of their bodies but we could use the mounds of dirt over their bodies to use as shooting positions when we release more CO2 into the air when invite lots of people to shoot at explosives.
Here we set off some explosives, releasing CO2 into the air, with guns which also release CO2:
And we smiled as we did it (and don’t fail to notice the big, fuel guzzling, pickup):
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
John Philpot Curran
Speech upon the Right of Election for Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1790.
[Curran is also credited with “Evil prospers when good men to nothing.” as is Edmund Burke. But the quote cannot be definitely traced to either man.
This also reminds me of the quote which is most frequently attributed to the ACLU, “Liberty is always unfinished business.”
We see the effect of this truism all around us. “The active” are those who believe government is far more than a necessary evil (as I do). They believe it is a tool of good if not the source of all good. Hence they urge it on, run for office, and declare themselves “leaders” instead of public servants.—Joe]
Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.
D.H. Lawrence
[Some say we are quickly approaching the slave state. Others say we have already arrived.—Joe]
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.
Daniel Webster
[And it continues to this day.—Joe]
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):
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.
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.
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]
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.
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]
Wow!
That really does capture it:
All this is, is a text-adventure first-person-shooter. Zork meets Counterstrike.
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]
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.
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:
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.
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]