Quote of the day–Jason Davis

Posted on by

This, at its simplest, is political hate speech towards the community to which Detective Tuason is duty-bound to protect. It is an abhorrent and vile insight into the mindset of one East Palo Alto’s own detectives regarding on-duty activities. It is chilling to contemplate what could happen if Detective Tuason encountered citizens exercising their fundamental civil rights to openly carry in a lawful manner within the City of East Palo Alto, as one Redwood City man did on January 28th. Like the allegations of comrption that left the East Palo Alto Police Department with a tarnished reputation just a few months ago, this vivid and graphic imagery of police misconduct will be hard to dispel.

Jason Davis
The Law Offices of DAVIS & ASSOCIATES
February 12, 2010
Letter to Ronald L. Davis Chief of Police City of East Palo Alto on behalf of The Calguns Foundation, Inc. This was in response to a detective saying “Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night! Should’ve pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them made a furtive movement…2 weeks off!!”
[Ahhhh … yes. Reminds me of the kind of stuff we used to hear about happening to blacks in the deep south 50 to 100 years ago.

Gun owners are the ni**ers of the 21st Century.

H/T to Rob for the email pointer. I had seen the original quote but not the response of CGF.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Marshall McLuhan

Posted on by

We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror.

Marshall McLuhan
[Although we can see road behind us with reasonable clarity our ability to discern the cliffs, turns, and rockslides ahead is severely limited. It’s a shame Dr. Ronald L. Mallett’s time machine isn’t up and running.–Joe]

No Internet connection

Posted on by

Just a FYI.

My hidden, hardened, underground bunker lost it’s Internet connection yesterday afternoon and I haven’t bother to use alternate methods of checking my email. I did check the comments and add one here on the blog but generally don’t expect anything from me until I restablish normal communcations. This is expected to be sometime this evening after I get off work.

If something urgent comes up give me a call on my cell phone: 208-301-4254.

Update: After wasting about two hours of my life I have an Internet connection at my bunker again. I wish I could bill Comcast for my time.

Kelsey says, “Comcast is a Dick!” James had a longer explaination which is not worth repeating here.

And a word of advice to $@#!%^& people at Comcast from security professional…

Do not insist I turn off my firewall and connect my computer directly to the cable modem!

My inclination after doing this is to wipe the hard disk and reinstall the O/S.

Playing With Fire

Posted on by

That’s fire and brimstone.  This is pure gun geekery, and even for gun geeks its nerdy because it’s about percussion guns of the 1800s.  You’ve been warned.

Saturday, Nephew and I tried some heavy loads for the repro 1858 Remington revolver.  I’d been using a 28 grain powder charge and a round ball with decent results, but wanted to try something with more pep.  Civil War era military loads ranged from very light, to as much powder and lead as could be stuffed in the cylinder.  To start, we tried round ball (~140 grains) over a charge of 39 grains of 3F Goex with a greased felt wad in between.  That load filled the chambers completely and delivered an average of 925 fps at 10 feet with an extreme spread of 46.  Not too bad.  The 29 grain charge was yielding a velocity of about 850 fps.

It’s like pulling teeth to find acceptable “conical” bullets (“bullet shaped” as opposed to a round ball) for these “.44” percussion revolvers unless you cast your own, which I don’t.  I did find some Buffalo Bullets 180 grain jobs that fit the chambers nicely, and ordered 100 of them to try.  Since the bullet takes up more room in the chamber, the most powder I could get in and still seat the bullet below the cylinder face was 30 grains.  But, wow.  Average velocity was 1047 fps.  That’s a tad better than a .40 S&W, and matches the V of a .45 Auto load in the Speer manual for their 185 gr GDHP.  Extreme spread was 67, with a standard deviation of 21.

That was with two different people doing the loading.  I’m going to guess that with the same person loading all the rounds, the charge weight and ramming pressure would be a little more consistent, and so too the velocity.  Groups with this load opened up slightly from last week’s all-ball venture, but not enough to be sure.  This time was in direct sunlight, which makes aiming a little more difficult.

The extra pressure it takes to move the heavier bullet, which also has more friction surface against the bore, I will assume ramps up the powder’s burn rate.  More velocity with less powder and a heavier bullet.  Neat.  We’ve found a performance, or efficiency, zone.  More pressure equals more heat, equals a faster, more complete burn inside the bore, equals yet more pressure.

This is how guns (and sometimes chemical factories, engines, etc.) blow up– things look great as you increase the pressure and temp a little.  The reaction speeds up, a little bit more, things are doing fine, a little bit more and, Boom!.  A threshold is reached and a runaway reaction takes place.  You shear some bolt lugs, or burst a cylinder, etc. and maybe you go home with slightly fewer or slightly misshapen body parts.  That can be embarrassing.

I wasn’t worried about this load in a modern repro made with modern steel.  When these revolvers were designed and built originally, metallurgy wasn’t anything like it is today, and even back then they were known to stuff the chambers full on a regular basis.  Further, it makes no sense to build a cylinder that will take more powder than it can handle with the commonly used “44-100” bullets of up to 250 grains.  That would take more material and make the gun bigger and heavier, for no other reason than to encourage over-pressure loads.  I’m also running on some faith that they wouldn’t have done that (though the much longer 1847 .44 Colt “Walker” cylinder was known to occasionally let go).  Remember that back then there was only black powder, not the wide spectrum of nitro powders we have now.  All they had to control the powder’s burn rate were different granulations of the same mixture (though brand and lot inconsistency would likely have thrown in some degree of uncertainty).  With smokeless propellants you can get into a LOT MORE TROUBLE making your own loads.

Here’s Nephew torching off one of the heavy loads.  The bullet has been on its way for about a millisecond, as the gun is still in firing position and the hot gas (I mean hot– this is in direct sunlight) has traveled a foot or so out from the muzzle;

Below is the same shot in full recoil a fraction of a second later.  Forget about quick follow-up shots.  You can’t see the target until the smoke clears. By then you’re re-cocked and ready to go.  A side wind would be a big help in this case;

Today’s rapid fire guns wouldn’t be worth as much if they had to run on black powder.  For one thing you wouldn’t be able to see squat.  It is “interesting” to take a shot, and find that your target has simply disappeared after the smoke has cleared.  There’s that moment of uncertainty.

I like the slow, frame-by-frame animations as below.  You can see the mechanics of the recoil (though a high speed camera would be nice).  You can watch the force wave travel from his wrist, into the arm, the shoulder, and whole torso.  Nephew’s grip is fairly relaxed, which isn’t a problem with a medium weight 44 revolver.  Some people hate animated gifs on a web page.  I’m one of them, but this is for science;

You shouldn’t haul off and max out your charcoal burner just because I did.  I’m not saying it’s the thing to do.  What I can say is; I still, for the moment, have all my body parts (and gun parts) and all are operating satisfactorily, thank you.  I have a load that’s within the range of those used in the 1860s for the Remington New Model Army revolver and 1860 Colt Army, and it matches some of the .45 ACP loads for a ~180 grain bullet.

Now here’s a puzzler.  I’ve had barrel leading in modern revolvers and autos firing bare lead, hard-cast or swaged bullets.  Using pure, soft lead bullets in the ’58 Remington and ’51 Colts, no leading has been observed, even with these loads that achieve modern handgun KE levels.  I don’t know why.  Is it the grease?  But we’re told in no uncertain terms never to lubricate a modern gun bore, while black powder guns are greased all to hell.  Is it the propellant temp?  But the KE is the same.

Windows Phone 7 Series

Posted on by

This is what I’m working on.

Deep down in the O/S you will find a location application programming interface. Below that you will find code that converts the existence of Wi-Fi and cell tower radio signals into a latitude and longitude. That (and a few other things) has been my job for the last several months.

This is just one small piece of a very large and impressive picture.

As Sean just said a minute ago in an IM, “Wow. You showed me some neat stuff Friday, but I was still impressed by today’s reveal. With this piece of the puzzle, I get a tingling feeling up and down my leg. Like we really might be entering a new golden age for Microsoft.”

Quote of the day–Bruce Schneier

Posted on by

[I]t’s always interesting to see provably secure cryptosystems broken.

Bruce Schneier
December 30, 2009
Quantum Cryptography Cracked
[Security can be a very, very difficult problem. It is like a chain in that it is no stronger than the weakest link. This is the reason TSA is A Security Theater. The same can be said about gun control–only several orders of magnitude greater in strength.

Quantum Cryptography is “provably secure” given a set of assumptions. Those assumptions include both known explicit assumptions and implicit assumptions which the prover may or may not be fully aware of. By making those assumptions invalid the proof falls apart.

No one seriously attempts to formally prove gun control provides benefits to society. The well informed anti-gun people frequently don’t even make claims. They just point out all the adverse effects of gun ownership then announce their conclusions that there should be more gun control. This is not science. This is more like a witch doctor chanting around the fire and making pronouncements about the evil spirits.

If someone were attempt make a formal proof about benefits of gun control they would quickly find out that the anti-gun people make many assumptions which are provably false. Typically among these are that guns are “designed to kill” or “all gunshot deaths are illegal/evil/bad”, or a prohibition on guns will work better with firearms than it did with alcohol and recreational drugs. With such assumptions so blatantly false the claims of there being benefits to gun control are laughable.–Joe]

Boomershoot Wi-Fi update

Posted on by

Even though I’m not using the external antenna on the Taj Mahal Wi-Fi access point I still have good service at the far west end of the shooting line. I’m currently showing four out of five bars on my laptop.

As BillH posted a few days ago the Boomershoot site has zero snow. I drove all the way out to the Taj in my car without problems. Last year at this time it was snowshow conditions.

Starbucks Appreciation Day

Posted on by

As I forwarded from Mike yesterday we need to have a Starbucks Appreciation day. In some back channel communication with other gun bloggers and friends in the gun rights community (Ashley V. suggested some wording for me to use) no one had any objection to Mike’s suggestion. Therefore I would like to announce that one week from today on Sunday February 21 gun owners should have a Starbucks Appreciation Day.

I would like to suggest we do this without an overt display of firearms. Our message of Starbucks Appreciation will be overshadowed by the known presence of firearms if we make having a firearm on our person the point of the message. Let’s keep it simple and let the barista and manager know why we’re making a purchase that day.

You can get the message across just as well by saying something like:

Please know I’m here because firearm owners across the country want to show Starbucks our appreciation for your decision not to ostracize customers who own and carry guns.

I’m going to be consuming Starbucks products on a regular basis now and would like for other gun rights supporters to do the same. But next Sunday we should make a point of telling them why and explicitly telling them thank you.

Update: One supporter (Lorena) says, “Have a cup of joe with Joe!”

Quote of the day–M. Kristen Rand

Posted on by

That’s sheer insanity.

If you remove the background check requirement, you’re literally writing a death sentence for law enforcement officers, family members, just people in the street.

M. Kristen Rand
Legislative director for the Violence Policy Center.
January 30, 2010
Seeing Loose Gun Laws as Still Too Tight (NY Times and the AP)
Ms. Rand is referring to a proposed law to remove the requirement for a license in order to carry a concealed weapon.
[Ms. Rand also said almost the same thing in regards to relaxing Washington D.C.’s oppressive gun laws. Complete with the “lunacy” and “writing a death sentence” phrasing. Of course she ignores places like Vermont and Alaska which have low crime rates and no requirement to obtain a license to carry. And, of course, D.C. didn’t have an increase in the blood running down the street after the gun ban was overturned. But apparently in Ms. Rand’s mind that really doesn’t matter so she repeats her previously faulty prediction with just as much conviction as the previous time.

With such blatant disregard for the facts I have to conclude the only insanity involved is that of Ms. Rand. One could disregard the raving of such a lunatic if it were only her talking to parking meters on the street or other inmates in an asylum. But the New York Times and the AP apparently think there is value in sharing some of her delusions.–Joe]

Lethal Logic: Chapter 2

Posted on by

See Notes on Lethal Logic for links to all my posts on Dennis Henigan’s book Lethal Logic.

Chapter 2 of Lethal Logic is titled: “When Guns Are Outlawed Only Outlaws Will Have Guns.“

In response to this “bumper-sticker” Henigan, page 38, claims this:

… seems unresponsive to most proposals for strengthening our guns laws that have dominated the gun debate for at least the last two decades. Instead, the argument often functions as a classic “red herring”.

The basis for this claim is there is virtually no support in public polls or the legislatures of the states or the Federal government for a ban on handguns. But notice, pages 37 and 38, how he words this in terms of handguns. Then he goes on to day (page 38), “This is not to say that the proposal to ban handguns, or even all guns, is not worthy of public debate.”

What about “assault weapons” Mr. Henigan? Or “.50 caliber sniper rifles?” Or “Saturday Night Specials”? Or the support for banning the future sale of guns which don’t met their criteria for safety? Or depriving people of their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms without due process (they call it the “Terror Gap“)? And don’t forget their support the the “safe handgun lists” of California and Massachusetts. And furthermore he doesn’t mention the Brady Campaign supported the D.C. ban on handguns. With all the bans which he and his organization do support it can hardly be considered a “red herring”. How many guns types would have to be remaining before it would stop being a “red herring”?

It stops being a red herring the instant he proposes the banning of just one gun. And we are way past that threshold. Yet he words things very carefully to try and make it sound as if his claim is still valid. He says the following in discussing the Heller decision (page 40):

If a handgun ban is “off the table,” this may make it more difficult for the pro-gun advocate to change the subject when the issue is reasonable gun laws, like background checks at gun shows, that fall far short of a handgun ban. How can the gun lobby argue as if the issue is whether to allow guns for self-defense, if the issue now cannot be whether to allow guns for self-defense? If the argument is, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns,” now a new response is possible: “Not only are we not talking about outlawing guns, but guns cannot be outlawed. So let’s talk about ways of strengthening our laws to keep guns out of the wrong hands, while abiding by the new Constitutional right created in Heller.”

When all the anti-gun organizations give up bans of all types of guns, and making law abiding people jump through oppressive registration, licensing, and training requirements then we can talk about dropping the “When Guns Are Outlawed Only Outlaws Will Have Guns” slogan.

And what is this about “the new Constitutional right created in Heller”? We have quotes, papers, and even state constitutions that go back to the founding of this republic all saying it was the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. It was just in the last few decades that some people started claiming it was a “collective right”. We have been telling them all this time it was an individual right. Now that all nine justices on the Supreme Court agreed with us they act as if it’s a surprise to them.

Even ignoring outright bans Henigan acknowledges the slogan has wider application (page 41):

The core of the argument is that because gun control laws, by their very nature, are obeyed only by the law abiding, they cannot possibly be effective in curbing violent behavior by criminals. “Criminals will always break the law and obtain firearms illegally,” says NRA President Sandra Froman.

…

The success of gun control laws in curbing access to guns by dangerous people is not at all dependent on the willingness of hardened criminals to obey them.

…

Were it not for gun control laws barring gun possession by certain categories of high-risk people, the police would not have this enforcement tool at their disposal.

What it boils down to is that Henigan is a proponent of creating numerous victim-less crimes that can be used by the police to arrest and prosecute people. Usefulness to the police is not a criteria that should be entertained when we are speaking of a specific enumerated right. Do we want to create categories of “high-risk people” that should be denied access to religious materials? Or certain categories of “high-risk people” who do not enjoy a right to trial by jury, or the right not to incriminate themselves? Wouldn’t those too be useful law enforcement tools?

I don’t have the time to go through all the half-truths and mistaken conclusions and proposed violations of an inalienable right in this chapter but here is a slightly expanded version of my notes on the chapter

Page 45. Figure 2.1 baseline is not 0.

Time to crime is greater than zero.

By using a baseline very close to the average value changes that small effects appear to be amplified. The effect he exaggerates is the drop in crime rates after passage of the Brady Act. The same Brady Act that the CDC says insufficient evidence exists to credit it with a drop in crime. Furthermore the “time to crime” for a gun is greater than zero but his graph shows a drop nearly exactly coincident with the Brady Act. And even that is misleading because the crime rate actually started dropping in 1992 before the Brady Act was passed. If there was a correlation between the crime rate and the Brady Act any causation must be that the crime rate caused the Brady Act rather than the other way around.

Page 46. Iron Pipeline.
Strong gun law states will probably have their laws thrown out. Strong law argument can be used against cell phones and cars.

The laws against gun ownership/recreational-drugs/alcohol/pornography/whatever create black markets. The just because a black market exists does not mean it is in the best interest of society to expand those bans. There would exist a black market in cars and cell phones if some states made it expensive and/or difficult to acquire those tools. Cars and cell phones are used in crimes all the time too but that doesn’t mean they should be banned or heavily restricted.

One gun a month requires some sort of registration.

Page 52. Registration fails The Jews in the Attic Test. People will not register. 100s of millions unregistered in Europe and Canada.

Page 58. Machine guns legal.

Henigan claims the low use of machine guns in violent crime shows that strict registration and licensing work. No. His base assumption that machine guns give “an enormous advantage in a gunfight with police” is wrong. I’ve fired machine guns, I’ve seen other people fire machine guns. When it comes to putting rounds on a few targets quickly a semi-auto is a far better tool. Even Jeff Cooper said, “As I have often stated, if someone wants to shoot at me, I sure hope he does it on full-auto.” (Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol. 1, No. 9 October 1993). If criminals have any gun experience at all they will arrive at the same conclusion and realize that there are no advantages for the types of uses they have for firearms and don’t bother to acquire one. Even the police who have legal access to full auto firearms do not carry them on a regular basis and do not have much, if any, training with them. The absence of full auto firearms in crime does not mean the highly restrictive laws reduced violent crime or had any other benefit to society.

Page 63. Suicide reduced by waiting periods.
A right delayed is a right denied. How many lives lost because of waiting periods and storage laws?

Page 65. Accidental shooting data is old.

He does not use data past 2000. The accidental shooting rate continued to drop despite vastly more guns being in circulation.

Page 68. Ten states. Six states.

By “cherry picking” his data (ten states the highest rates of death by gunshot versus the six with the lowest rate of death gunshot) he skews things to support his conclusions. Furthermore this measure “death by gunshot” is of little interest to people like me who care more about “violent crime”. By choosing the metric he did he can ignore things like the high violent crime rates in jurisdictions where people do not have ready access to guns to defend themselves. It also lumps justified and praiseworthy homicide where the good guy used a gun in with criminal homicide with a gun. He may be giving accurate numbers but he is very selective in how he present them such that he can conclude “gun restrictions are good”.

Regardless of which point Henigan attempts to make he completely fails to “explode the myth”. The best that can be said about Henigan in this chapter is that figures don’t lie but this liar does know how to figure.

Shiny

Posted on by

Xenia and her husband John bought a new car today. Since John is several thousand miles away at the moment I gave her a ride to the dealership and provided “moral support”. It is the first car she has ever owned.

Since the salesman who sold them the car was at his grandmother’s funeral it was the dealership owner that did the paperwork and gave us a mug (for Xenia) and two hats (one for John, one for me). He was very nice and gave Xenia his card which had his home phone number on it in case she had trouble with the car that wasn’t resolved with the normal staff. He asked Xenia to thank John for his service (U.S. Army). So far, I highly recommend Jess Ford in Pullman.

On the way back she called me (using the integrated Bluetooth cellphone connection) and talked about how cool it was that she could call people with her car. It even has voice recognition, she pushed a number, said, “Dial”, spoke the number and said, “Dial” again. Very cool and the car is definitely shiny.

What must be done

Posted on by

I have been negligent and I’ve been reminded of this in email from Mike:

Are you aware of any efforts to counter the Brady Starbucks petition? They claim to have 25k signatures. Money talks and bullshit walks, though. I think it would be a lot more effective than an online petition to designate a “Thank Starbucks Day”, where people would be encouraged to go into their local Starbucks, buy a coffee, and hand the manager a card thanking the company for their enlightened policies. Or send the CEO a photo of oneself holding a latte. Or ??? This might not be a bad idea to put into practice regularly with other companies. Why complain about bad policies? Let’s reward companies with good ones (and make a lot of noise doing it). What do you think?

“I’d like to thank Starbucks for standing up for the safety of its customers and allowing lawfully carried firearms in your retail establishments. Thank you for your wise decision and for helping us keep our families safe. I will be recommending your products to all my coffee drinking friends.”

Yes. This must be done.

Sebastian has more on the topic here and here. Send your email by following this link.

It is really, really important for the Brady Campaign to win something. They aren’t winning in the legislatures. They aren’t winning elections. They aren’t winning in the courts. They aren’t winning in the polls. They aren’t winning in donations. They aren’t winning in members. They have sunk to the level of doing battle with a few guys in their pajamas which they can’t win either.

Such a major losing streak can become a fatal downward spiral. It demoralizes them and their supporters. As Chris Cox, NRA-ILA Executive Director, said in regards to politicians, “They don’t fear me. They fear you.” If the Brady Campaign can only bring a small fraction of the people to the party that gun activists can they will be less influential. The less influence they have the less notice people will give them. The less notice the less influence.

It’s sort of like something barely floating on the surface of the ocean. As long as they are less dense than the water they float and are visible. The visibility changes day to day with the density. As long as they are visible they have influence and have hope of becoming more visible and influential the next day. But this is only true while their density is less than water. There is a threshold which cannot be crossed. Very shortly after their density increases just a very small amount above water they start their journey to the very bottom of the ocean. Their visibility while on the surface is a linear function of their density. But as soon as the density of water threshold is crossed it’s like a switch was turned off.

We know how dense they are. It won’t take much to get them started on their journey to oblivion. Send Starbucks your email and your business. Tell them when you buy your coffee (or pastries, tea, and hot chocolate for people like me) that you are a gun owner and you appreciate them not discriminating against people exercising their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

Quote of the day–Matthew@Triggerfinger

Posted on by

The difference between gun control activists and gun rights activists is simple: gun rights advocates know what they are talking about, because they have depth of knowledge and expertise about firearms and pay attention to the issue. Gun control advocates, for the most part, don’t know anything about guns, aren’t interested in guns, and only pay attention to gun issues when the latest blood-dancing press release arrives. There’s no sustainability.

Matthew
[It’s more than just sustainability. It’s depth of knowledge, training, and preparation for the conflict.

I thought this for a QOTD was particularly relevant because in a meat space discussion yesterday Sean told me that he sometimes gets into discussions with an anti-gun person who thinks they know what they are talking about. It turns out they have only given the topic a few minutes of thought whereas Sean has spent 20 years thinking about the subject. As expected a battle of wits with an unarmed person is very one sided.–Joe]

Slogan for the week

Posted on by

Via Instapundit (via Sean):

FIRST THEY IGNORE YOU, then they laugh at you, then they smear you, then you win. An updated version for the 21st Century . . . .

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “And if they had simply stuck with the ignore you part they would have come out so much better. But then stupidity and evil have always been a noxious brew especially when it is topped off by arrogance.” Yeah, imagine how much less powerful Sarah Palin would be if they’d just given her the usual amount of attention received by losing VP candidates. But they just can’t help themselves.

In my scaled down version “they” becomes the Brady Campaign. See further elaboration on this line of thought by Greg.

Brady Campaign week continues here tomorrow with another chapter in Lethal Logic.

Another court victory

Posted on by

Via The Second Amendment Foundation press release:

A King County Superior Court judge has ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association, striking down a ban on guns in city parks because it violates Washington State’s long-standing preemption statute.

Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled from the bench that the gun ban, adopted under former Mayor Greg Nickels, violates Washington’s law, which placed sole authority for regulating firearms in the hands of the State Legislature. That law was adopted in 1983 and amended in 1985, and has served as a model for similar laws across the country.

SAF and NRA were joined in the lawsuit by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Washington Arms Collectors and five individual plaintiffs.

“This is a great victory for the rule of law and Washington citizens,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Greg Nickels was so blinded by his personal hatred for firearms owners and his own arrogance that he imagined the city under his control could simply ignore state law. That arrogance cost Nickels his job last year. We repeatedly warned him not to push a gun ban, but he refused to listen.

“It is also a victory for the Legislature,” he observed, “because this case affirms the intent of lawmakers in 1983 to prevent cities like Seattle from creating a nightmare patchwork of conflicting and confusing firearms regulations. The ruling solidifies the legislature’s authority and sends a message to city and county governments to stop meddling with the rights of Washington citizens.”

Gottlieb suggested a review of local ordinances may now be in order, so that city and county governments can be compelled to remove old gun regulations or face legal consequences.

“This ruling puts anti-gun local officials on notice that legally-armed citizens have rights, too,” Gottlieb stated.

See also:

Gun carrying residents of Washington State are protected from discrimination by the counties and cities yet the Brady Campaign wants businesses to discriminate again them. That is going to be a losing battle too. It’s time for them face the music. They should quietly be sending out their resumes and preparing for the end. If they can’t find honest work there are probably a few more years left in the global warming hoax.

Boomershoot 2010 dinner speaker

Posted on by

I just received an email from Michael Bane saying he will be the dinner speaker at Boomershoot this year.

Just an FYI, you don’t have to participate in Boomershoot to attend the dinner. Boomershoot spectators, gun enthusiasts, and even Brady Campaign Staff (we don’t discriminate) are welcome too. Both concealed and open carry are acceptable (which means we probably won’t have Dennis Henigan or Paul Helmke visiting us).

Dinner details are here and if you want to sign up for dinner follow this link.

Update: The Brady Campaign (aka Handgun Control Inc.) received their invitation a few minutes ago:

Domain Name   sct.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address   65.242.56.# (HANDGUN CONTROL)
ISP   Verizon Business
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  District of Columbia
City  :  Washington
Lat/Long  :  38.9042, -77.032 (Map)
Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language   English (U.S.)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)
Javascript   version 1.3
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1024 x 768
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Feb 12 2010 12:44:16 pm
Last Page View   Feb 12 2010 12:46:20 pm
Visit Length   2 minutes 4 seconds
Page Views   4
Referring URL http://blogsearch.go…Henigan%22&scoring=d
Search Engine blogsearch.google.com
Search Words “dennis henigan”
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffm…10DinnerSpeaker.aspx
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffm…elBaneOnBigotry.aspx
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-5:00
Visitor’s Time   Feb 12 2010 3:44:16 pm
Visit Number   708,302
 

I’ll let you know if they make a reservation. Don’t hold your breath on that one.

I have to have one–NOT!

Posted on by

Say Uncle linked to a small, light suppressor for a 300 WM.

People often say my 300 WM is extremely loud and I frequently wear both plugs and muffs when shooting it. I have sometimes thought of getting a suppressor for it but the extra weight at the end of the barrel didn’t seem like a good idea. The threads holding the barrel to the receiver have enough stress on them with the heavy barrel I have. But this suppressor weighs just 13.9 ounces and is only nine inches long!

My first thought was “I have to have one!”

Then I looked at the price: MSRP $1800.

I’d have to save up my birthday money for something like the next 30 years to be able to afford that.

Knocking down straw men

Posted on by

The Brady Campaign set up a straw man to knock down again yesterday:

While trying really hard to pose as a “victim of bigotry” with his best Rosa Parks impression (someone who faced genuine discrimination), Mr. Pierce forgot to blur the distinction between gun owners and gun carriers.  Whoops.

They are still pushing on the “immutable characteristics” defense against their bigotry. What I find interesting is that they consider religious affiliation “immutable”. And of course they don’t even mention interracial couples.

They make a big deal about “guns are things” and claim people with those things cannot be discriminated against.

They are just so incredible smart to have thought of that. They sure got me on that one. I never would have thought of a defense like that.[/sarcasm]

Let see how well that assertion plays out in general:

  • “You can come in, but you have to leave your burqa and ḥijāb, outside.”
  • “You can come in, but you have to leave your turban outside.”
  • “You can come in, but you have to leave your sari outside.”
  • “You can come in, but you have to leave your Star of David outside.”
  • “You can come in, but you have to leave your cross necklace outside.”
  • “You can come in, but you have to leave your NRA/SAF/CCRKBA/JPFO/Brady-Campaign shirt outside.”
  • “You can come in, but you have to leave your Bible/Torah/Koran outside.”

Is that still not discrimination?

I can only think of two possible explanations for the Brady Campaign to make the claims they do:

  1. They think the general population is so stupid as to believe that gun owners magically materialized a holstered gun on their belt or in their purse just before they walked into the store. And therefore they could just as easily not materialized it just prior to entering the store. That’s not the way it works. Many of us put on a gun just like we put on our shoes, pants, and shirt.
  2. They are so stupid or blinded by their own bigotry that they were unable to think it through.

[Mostly off topic–Does the Brady Campaign even have apparel for sale? I didn’t find anything on their website and none of the Brady Campaign items I found on Cafepress would be endorsed by them. I suppose that makes sense. After all, who would willingly put a “I’m defenseless” sign on themselves while in public? And if I did that I would likely get charged with “hunting over bait” or some such thing.]

Update: Sebastian put up a very well written post on the topic an hour before I started mine.

Quote of the day–Rep. Pete Jorgensen

Posted on by

I’ve been in situations in other countries working where I’m glad I didn’t have a gun. I’ve not sure I would’ve controlled myself.

Rep. Pete Jorgensen
D-Jackson
February 12, 2010
Gun bill gains backing
[The real reason comes out. They don’t trust themselves so they don’t trust other people.

The question I have is if they don’t think they can be trusted to have the power of a gun in their hands why should we trust them with the power of government in their hands?–Joe]

The email I get

Posted on by

I’m a little bit at a loss for words on this. But I received the following email from someone tonight:

So, I’m looking at my upcoming birthday… My hope is to be done by as many men as I can handle. For me, this is probably between four and ten. And a lot of lube. I, of course, am clueless how to set this up.

I’m thinking it might be helpful to talk with another single female… Can you think of someone I could talk with?

Before you claim it’s joke or prank by some teenage boy, let me assure you it is not. I know her (barely) but she did hint at something like this the last time I talked to her. I’m a little surprised but it does so happen I know someone that might be able to give her some advice. After her birthday party I’ll send her another email and see how it went.

Posted in Sex