Quote of the day–Max

Posted on by

Sullum, I hope you get a gun and accidentally shoot your balls off, you simpering right-wing fuckhead.

Max
April 7, 2010
Comment to Gun Controllers Need Not Fear ‘Intermediate Scrutiny’.
H/T to Say Uncle for the link.
[I guess I’m just a slow learner. Even though my first encounter was nearly a dozen years ago I’m always surprised at how hateful some of the people on the left are.

This morning I was reading some of Driftglass’s posts and addition to the persistent and willful ignorance there were things that were profoundly hateful and hinting at a desire for genocide. Again, I shouldn’t be surprised but I am. All genocides that immediately come to mind were by leftists. Even the concentration camps in the U.S. last century were implemented by leftists.

One of my main motivators for Boomershoot is because the left has such a propensity toward genocide. And if they didn’t want to take guns away I would be far less motived to be active in the gun rights movement and I might not even own a gun (the election of Bill Clinton and his anti-gun agenda was what inspired me to buy my first gun). The irony of it all–the left wants to ban guns and would be closer and better able to accomplish that particular goal if they didn’t want to ban guns.

Writing the previous paragraph reminded me of something I wrote a long time ago (from my quote database):

The only reason the American people will ever really NEED the number of firearms they have is if the American government tries to take those firearms away.
Joe Huffman
December 1, 1995

Side note–I didn’t know there was an internment camp out in the woods in Idaho at Canyon Creek near where Barb and I have spent a fair amount of time.–Joe]

Boomershoot 2010 update

Posted on by

Boomershoot 2010 shirts, hats, framed prints, underwear, cups, tote bags, mugs, etc. Available here.


Ry has the Boomershoot 2010 schedule available for your cell phone. There are different schedules you can subscribe to such as “Precision Rifle Clinic”, “Staff”, “Main Event”, etc. You phone will be automatically updated (assuming you have a data connection–free on-site Wi-Fi is available if nothing else) if the schedule changes.

Quote of the day–Driftglass

Posted on by

Its leaders fought for the right to : to work them like animals and kill them at will.

Its leaders fought for the right to enforce the institution of slavery with state-sanctioned terror and murder.

Its leaders were known as “Confederates”.

To preserve and defend their monstrous institution, Confederates spent centuries constructing massive social, economic, religious and cultural fortifications around it.

Like hemophilia, Confederates passed that comprehensive social, economic, religious and cultural worldview down generation after generation.

Like syphilis, to this day Confederates continue to spread that social, economic, religious and cultural worldview everywhere they go.

About 40 years ago, the Confederates changed their name.

Now they are known as “Republicans”.


Driftglass
April 7, 2010
Just In Case
[Some might say it is because of the state of our educational system. Others might say it was a simple error. But I’m inclined to think of it as a mental defect.


How can they live in such a fact free environment? No wonder they want government assistance for everything. They couldn’t find their way to their food without help from someone.


I left the following comment on their post:



You got a couple things mixed up. The anti-slavery people were Republicans and the pro-slavery people (including the racist bigots with their Jim Crow laws up through the 1960s) were all Democrats.

Other than that minor error I think you are pretty close.


I wonder if this is going to be another instance of “Reasoned Discourse“.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mohandes Gandhi

Posted on by

Political power means capacity to regulate national life through national representatives. If national life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary. There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a state every one is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbor. In the ideal State, therefore, there is no political power because there is no State.


Mohandes Gandhi
November 17, 1921
[Maybe it’s just crazy talk but it seems to me that Gandhi has it right.


In the ideal State there is no government because there is no need of government. Agreed, my utopia is just as unattainable as everyone elses. I concede government is necessary. But the less government we have the closer to the ideal we are. Yet so many people seem to think more government (via Kevin) brings us closer to the ideal.


Do these people even have a glimmer of what their end result looks like? Either they don’t have any concept of the principles, as explained above by Gandhi (and countless others including the people who wrote our constitution), or they have a radically different view of what utopia looks like. Both of these possible conclusions are equally frightening.–Joe]

Photo of the year?

Posted on by

Linoge claims one of the pictures of private Boomershoot party for Ian is “photo of the year”.


I’m not entirely comfortable with that claim. But it is nice that he did say that.


It was a pretty ordinary day and event in a lot of ways. What of the days when we have 120 shooters connecting with 1 MOA reactive targets out to 700 yards? I think of those pictures as more awe inspiring to me and are probably PSH inspiring to the anti-gun people. And what of the other private parties such as this one with Shobana? (BTW, she is planning on attending another private party soon.) She is from a country that has just as restrictive laws, if not more so, than Canada. And also, the year is young still.


But it’s an opinion thing. Linoge’s opinion is probably just as good as mine in this case.


In any event I have uploaded the original, unedited, high resolution photo for your viewing pleasure here (just shy of 5 Mbytes).


Update: I added the link to his post. Sorry about forgetting that.

The Most Sociable of Social Activities…

Posted on by

…and the most intense.


If you really want to get acquainted with your fellow man, if you want to understand people and society, start a business.  I’ve run a business since January of 1978.  Originally it was in musical instruments.  First repair only, but that quickly led to retail and installment sales.  It’s a walk-in store and shop, plus we do on-location sales, sound system installation and setup, and on top of all that I was part of a performing group (sound engineer) that also traveled.  All that’s still going on, but I’m now doing the design, manufacturing and internet sales thing with the gun accessories.


Please; this is not about me, though it may sound like it.  It’s really about you.  And people.  It’s about the world.


You cannot really understand your fellow human beings until you’ve sweated, worried, obsessed, invested, committed, risked everything, issued credit, and experienced the range of reactions, to that effort, from your fellow citizens.  You end up knowing the bank managers (they come and go) on a first name basis, the county clerk on a first name basis, several lawyers, teachers, fellow business owners.  You end up in small claims court, as a repo man, in debt yourself.  You end up in district court and in federal court trying to defend the property you sweated, cried, and devoted your life to.  You develop a relationship with the local collection agency, the local churches, and the local schools.  You deal, haggle, plead with, and give charity to, many people per day, every day.  In our case it was six days a week, plus weekends in the taverns, conference halls, churches, farms, businesses, and convention centers playing music.  One gig was in the garage/shop of a trucking company, for a company party.  Another was for a wedding of two friends.  Later, we played for their “divorce party”.  We played for a lot of weddings.


You deal with many thousands of people on a very personal level.  You learn of their troubles, their struggles, their marriages, their kids, and their extended families– their successes, their failures, their medical problems, their births, their schooling, their graduations (and do come, please) their weddings, their new children, and their deaths.  All of those things become part of your business.  They buy things from you, they utilize your services, and many of them owe you money.  They are your life.  One family could no longer pay us because their mother was in jail.  Another customer could not get into the Air Force because he’d rented a saxophone from us and immediately pawned it for cash, eventually losing the pawn, and had never paid us.  He eventually got in on a promise to pay, but I must have spoken to four or five base commanders on several continents, before we ever saw one payment.  Another family invited us to their son’s graduation party, being as we’d been so much a part of his music education.


You owe a lot of other people money.  You get to know your account rep at General Motors finance, at TransAmerica, and at Textron Financial.  You get to know the sales reps at the manufacturers, while you must see and judge the credit reports of hundreds of your customers.  Can these people be trusted with a thousand dollars worth of my sweat, blood and tears.  They sure think so themselves, but that’s not the benchmark.  The proof is in the pudding.


Wal Mart gets to know millions of people– their habits, their wants, their needs, their strengths, their weaknesses, their successes and their failures.  They have to.  It’s how they stay in business.  Some people love them, some people hate them and want them eliminated, and some don’t care– all for the same things Wal Mart does.


Then there’s hiring and firing.  You find out what’s being taught at the universities.  And what isn’t.  You make friends, and then you have to fire them.  You make other friends that are permanent.  You share in their successes and their failures, their sickness and their health, in good times and in bad.  You learn of their families, and their extended families, and you meet their circle of friends.


You learn more about life than you can ever tell.  You learn that utility rates (phone and power) are nearly double the rates paid by residents.  You learn that property taxes are also nearly double the rate for a live-in home.  “Home Owner’s Exemption” they call it here.  You learn that property tax isn’t just paid on real estate.  Those tools you built yourself?  Those are property too, and subject to the same tax.  You wanna spend forty grand to beautify the exterior and improve the sidewalks of your downtown business?  That’s gonna raise your assessment, and increase your tax bill, you money-grubbing motherfucker.


You get to know the police, too.  Very well.  You end up testifying as a witness when that customer you though you knew, ended up embezzling the entire trust fund his bed-ridden mother signed over to him as executor.  You end up in federal court when you refuse to hand over an instrument that you’re still making payments on, but a customer rented it (on a rent-to-own plan which is deemed legally as a “purchase”) and then filed bankruptcy, and it’s a big no-no when you try to exert your property rights without permission from the trustee (you also find out how a trustee can get a personal hatred for business owners who try to assert their rights without permission, and launch into a years-long vendetta).


Back when we were still operating, out of a one-car garage in my brother’s back yard, our competition in town (a music store that had been in business for many years, was much bigger and had a downtown location) started to lose franchises.  Having no one else to sell to in the area, the factory reps came to our garage.  We eventually bought a pathetically few instruments from them.  A personal friend of the competition in town reacted by visiting us to yell at us for “grabbing up all the business”.  Yeah; that’s us.  Two kids in a garage we’d rebuilt ourselves, in a backyard.  It had no inside walls– just bare insulation.  Living hand-to-mouth.  Virtually no assets other than our brains and our hands.  We’re the “privileged class”.  We’re “The Man” out to suck the life out of the righteous, with our dirty, no-good instrument repair tools (many of which we built ourselves) and little more than the trust and faith placed in us by some wholesalers’ credit departments.


People are funny that way.  You’ll never be able to please all the people all the time, but you can sure as hell please a few of them some of the time.  That’s the best anyone can do, and in the process you’re being as sociable as sociable gets.  You’re participating in life, and interacting with the community, to a degree that few people ever experience.


Sometimes it is very, vary sweet to be alone.  Only for a while.

Boomershoot 2010 T-shirt image

Posted on by

Via our professional photographer daughter Xenia who took the picture at Boomershoot last year:



Notice the target rich enviornment in the distance? Each of those little white dots is another pound or two of high explosives. The white “smoke” is actually almost all water vapor from the explosions. Yes, we try to make Boomershoot a “green” event. The daffodils? Those were planted by my grandmother and her sisters about 90 years ago.


T-shirts, cups, etc. will be available at Cafepress in a day or three.

Quote of the day–John Kenneth Galbraith

Posted on by

People of privilege will alway risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.


John Kenneth Galbraith
1977
The Age of Uncertainty
[I find it interesting that Galbraith was a hard-core socialist and advocated the government intervention to remove “inequities”. The reason I find it interesting is that when I read the quote above I immediately, and only, thought of politicians and government bureaucrats.


Apparently he didn’t think of people in government as being “people of privilege”. He, like many other advocates of socialism, gun control, etc. only think in terms of the hoped for benefits rather than weighing the total package for its net worth. Contrary to those with experience with attempts to achieve utopia they think the equalizers will equalize themselves.


I should come up with “Just One Question” for socialists/communists. I believe it would end up something like, as I mentioned before, “How do you measure fairness/justice?”–Joe]

Quote of the day–Emma Goldman

Posted on by

The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.


Emma Goldman
The above is Ms. Goldman’s definition of anarchism.
[She hoped to help move this country to the next stage beyond our present form of government. And the above almost sounds like a Libertarian tenet. But she also advocated “from everyone according to their ability and to everyone according to their need“. And she was an inspiration to President McKinley’s assassin.


It is possible we may be facing “the next stage” of government in the near future. Let us beware of forms which create hope of an utopia and bring poverty, violence, and everlasting servitude.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ellen Glasgow

Posted on by

The mob that would die for a belief seldom hesitates to inflict death upon any opposing heretical group.


Ellen Glasgow
From The Great Thoughts (link is to the 2nd Edition, mine is the 1st Edition–1985)
[The people on both sides of the current political battles would do well to keep this in mind.–Joe]

Free Washington State IDPA Championship entry

Posted on by

Via email from Daniel:



Cheaper Than Dirt! has one free entry into the Northwest Practical Pistol Association sponsored 2010 Washington State IDPA Championship being held August 21st at the Renton Fish & Game Club in Renton, Washington.


Established in 1933, the Renton Fish & Game Club has been open and serving the community for more than 50 years. They are one of the oldest and the largest shooting ranges in King county. For over a half century the Renton Fish & Game Club has been providing a safe place to shoot as well as learn and practice the safe use of firearms through various training programs.


Cheaper Than Dirt! is looking for a blogger or person on Facebook or Twitter who would like to compete in the IDPA Championship and blog or tweet about their experience. Qualified individuals must be a current IDPA member with a Master Marksman classification or higher. Novice class shooters are not permitted to compete. Preference will be given to shooters with an existing blog or public Twitter or Facebook account.


If you don’t currently have an IDPA classification but are capable of obtaining one by the match date, we will consider those entries as well. Novice shooters will have difficulty making the classification by the deadline, so please limit entries to experienced shooters only.


If you meet the requirements and would like to compete in the 2010 Washington State IDPA Championship, send an email with your information and why you would like to attend to daniels@cheaperthandirt.com. We will select one person to receive a free entry to the match. Selection will be made by July 1st, so please send in your emails no later than midnight May 31st.

A gun blogger glossary

Posted on by

From Appleseed to Zootshooters here.

I’m probably a little over-represented with my Jews In the Attic Test, Just One Question, and Threepers.

Quote of the day–Beverly Akerman

Posted on by

How long does it take to pull a trigger, anyway? That’s the amount of time it takes for a “law-abiding” gun owner to become a law-breaking one. Here’s how the gun registry helps prevent crimes, including murder (I’m typing slowly so even the dullards among us will understand): knowing who has which guns allows the police to remove them as a preventative measure, should it become necessary. Why do critics of the long gun registry persistently ignore this simple truth? Enforcing the registry does prevent crime. Since its creation, close to 23,000 firearms licences have been refused or revoked because of just this sort of safety concern.


Beverly Akerman
Enforcing long-gun registry does prevent crime.
March 29, 2010
[Preventing crime… Shall we also prevent the crime of falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater by duct taping peoples mouths shut and tying their hands to their ankles prior to entering a theater so that can’t remove the tape? Or how about preventing women from engaging in prostitution by forcing them to wear a chastity belt with the only keys held by their fathers or husbands? Or preventing libel by registering all computers and printers?  (actually, we sort of have this already).


Also note that she measures the effectiveness of the registration laws in terms of licenses refused or revoked rather than decreased violent crime rates. This is like measuring the effectiveness of anti-miscegenation laws by the number of people in prison rather than any imagined benefit to society.


It is also worthy of note that the advocates of miscegenation laws and hoaxes to further their cause were Democrats. This is also generally the case today with gun laws where advocates are generally Democrats and openly engage in hoaxes to accomplish their goals.–Joe]

Quote of the day–George Mason

Posted on by

That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various modes and forms of government that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.


George Mason
Virgina Declaration of Rights
Adopted unanimously June 12, 1776 bye the Virginia Convention of Delegates.
[It’s time for some reform, altering, and abolishing around here.–Joe]

Anti-gun organizations financial archive

Posted on by

Bitter does some analysis of the Brady Campaign finances. She mentions she doesn’t have any data before 2004. I do.


I don’t have the time to play with the numbers but maybe someone else does.


My spreadsheet from October 2007 is here and I have the raw Brady data here (7.3 Mbyte .zip file).

Light posting

Posted on by

This will be the fewest posts I have made in a single month since March of 2006.


Things are very very busy at work. I can’t tell you how many nights I have stayed at the office until nearly midnight or worked from home until 02:00 or 03:00, or worked all weekend. I’m watching a build run out of the corner of my eye as I type this.


Next month isn’t looking good either. The pressure will remain high for most of the month and then I will need to do a lot of stuff for Boomershoot. Please believe me that I intend to post more and will do so again. It just might not be until sometime in May.

All Hopey Changey in the UK

Posted on by

From Drudge.  Pet shop owner fined 1,000 pounds and charged criminally for selling goldfish to an under age buyer.  No one puts up any meaningful opposition.  I hope y’all like this sort of thing (and I’m sure some of you do) ’cause we’re getting more and more of the same crap here.


You have to hand it to the statist scum.  They do know their business.  Anything to keep the citizenry off-balance, distracted and afraid.  The question remaining unanswered is when and how the advocates of liberty will acquire the same sort of organization, audacity and clout.


We’re only about 80 to 100 years behind the statists in this war, give or take.  How long, you figure, will it take to catch up to a point where we’re on par?

Quote of the day–Lyle @ UltiMAK

Posted on by

I’ve had enough of the tacticians being all too careful not to piss off the opposition. It’s as useful as shunning pork and cutting down from whiskey to beer one day a week to keep the jihadists from hating you. That’s playing games when the enemy is serious. If they’re not trying to kill you, you’re doing something wrong anyway.


Lyle @ UltiMAK
March 31, 2010
In private email.
[The context was a discussion of politicians who claim they “stand up for the Second Amendment” but actually mean they are trying to play both sides of the fence well enough to get both sets of votes.


I agree with Lyle. As I have said many, many times we need to politically exterminate those who advocate infringement of our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. When we finish that task we need to politically exterminate those who tolerate infringement of our rights. They need to be as politically viable as a leader of the KKK. If we were doing our job correctly they would be just as physically dangerous or just as politically impotent.–Joe]

Lies and distortions

Posted on by

Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign is at it again.

I have no problem with Helmke being upset about Jim Brady and other people who are killed or injured. But it doesn’t help his case any that he lies and distorts the situation. Here are some examples:

Almost two million dangerous people have been stopped from buying a gun since 1993.

Wrong. The correct statement is, “Almost two million people have been stopped from buying a gun via a licensed gun dealer since 1993.”

The first point to make is that we don’t know how many of those that were stopped were not actually dangerous. Is someone who failed to pay their taxes 30 years ago and has committed no crime since that felony convictions a dangerous person today? Or what of the black guy who committed the felony, 40 years ago, of being in possession of a deck of cards which had pictures of naked white women on them? Are they dangerous? In both cases they would have been stopped from buying a gun and Helmke includes them in his numbers.

The second point to make about this claim is that just because a truly “dangerous person” was stopped from purchasing a gun at a licensed dealer doesn’t mean he or she didn’t get a gun via the black market a few minutes or hours later.

The third point to make about this claim is there is no evidence this law has made the general population safer. Helmke measures success in terms of people blocked from purchases not in terms of making society safer. Answer Just One Question Paul.

They can buy guns without a background check from “law-abiding citizens” like Timothy McVeigh, who used his gun show sale profits to blow up the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and kill 168 innocent people. The killers at Columbine were outfitted at a gun show.

McVeigh could have used profits from a dry cleaning business or maintaining the web site of the Brady Campaign to blow up buildings. That he legally made money at gun shows is irrelevant to his criminal activities. Helmke attempts to make a subtle guilt by association claim here. But the guns shows McVeigh attended do not share responsibility for the bombing anymore than Al Gore does for Ted Kaczynski’s bombings.

The Columbine killers didn’t need gun shows to obtain their long guns. The elder of the two psychopaths was old enough to purchase long guns on their own at any firearms dealer. Again, Helmke is attempting to make the innocent appear guilty by association.

Now radicals proudly carry assault rifles to visits by President Obama, and the current holder of Jim’s old job says it’s just fine, and they’re not at all worried.

Wrong. It was an ordinary semi-automatic sporting rifle. It was not an assault rifle.

He leaves out the fact that the people with the firearms were not even within eyesight of President Obama, did not engage in any threatening behavior and broke no laws.

And I find it very telling that he uses the term “radical” to describe someone exercising both specific enumerated rights to free speech and keep and bear arms.

He concludes with:

… we’re far from being as safe as we could be.

True. But Helmke and the Brady Campaign have a proven track record of advocating laws that accomplish nothing but creating an impediment to people exercising their rights with no increase in public safety. And I guess the trauma of this headline from msnbc was just too much for Helmke to remember to include in his post, Record numbers now licensed to pack heat–Firearms deaths fall as millions obtain permits to carry concealed guns.

Helmke can’t be trusted to tell the truth or the whole story. That would endanger his job at the Brady Campaign where the truth doesn’t fit their agenda.