Quote of the day—Rebekah Sager

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The way I see it, the only way forward is not only to have some acknowledgment of the truth, but as Germany has done with its horrific past, I’d like to criminalize denial. That may sound harsh, but I think it’s the only way for this nation to truly progress.

Rebekah Sager
September 5, 2022
The U.S. will never move forward until we acknowledge our past and criminalize its denial
[In other words, she wants to create a thoughtcrime in order to “truly progress”.

In addition to being a violation of the 1st Amendment thoughtcrime is a regression rather than progression. China, North Korea, and the U.S.S.R. performed massive and catastrophic experiments with that. That Germany has managed to survive a very narrow experiment is an exception rather than a shining example.

She should read some books on the topic. I would like to recommend she start with The Gulag Archipelago. Even the publication history would be a good background. But, of course, there is a high risk that she either already has, or would, consider such documentation as how-to material rather than a warning against a dystopian world.—Joe]

Idaho sunsets

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I see the most amazing sunsets when I am in Idaho. I’m not certain why. I suspect it is because I spend more time outdoors and there are far fewer buildings obstructing the view.

Here is a sample of what I saw tonight. The only editing on the first two is that they are both cropped a little bit:

IMG_7744CroppedIMG_7746Cropped

I took this one with my phone and is unedited:

20220907_192038

I sent it to Barb and she said:

WOW!!!!!

That picture is insane.

Agreed.

Quote of the day—Colion Noir @MrColionNoir

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NY Governor Says Her Rights As Governor Trumps Constitutional Rights To Conceal Carry

Does this sound like a woman who is worried about the safety of her citizens or a TYRANT who is afraid to lose power over its citizens?

Colion Noir @MrColionNoir
Tweeted on September 3, 2022
[Hint: This is a rhetorical question.—Joe]

Banking rights?

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Over the years we have seen banks close the accounts of gun stores simply because they sold a constitutionally protected item. This was wrong and the U.S. Senate telling them to back off probably helped.

I’ll grant that you might have to squint a little to see it but this is an analogous situation with the 1st Amendment:

Over the weekend, Rolling Stone broke the news that half a dozen of the bank’s clients had their banking accounts with Wells Fargo canceled with no previous warning. What do they have in common? Each has previously or is currently working in the adult entertainment industry. Some performers have held accounts with the bank for 25 years or more.

I’m a bit torn on this topic. Should a company (and/or an individual) be forced by law to do business with someone?

There is the wedding cake case for possible insight. There I was inclined to side with cake makers freedom of religion claim over the same sex couple wanting a wedding cake.

In the gun maker/distributor/seller and the adult entertainers banking cases I’m having a tougher time siding with the businesses. Sure, the Feds don’t have constitutional authority (like that has ever stopped them) to tell the banks they must do business with someone. Unless, of course, there is a “banking right” hidden in the constitution someplace. But the individual states could legislate such requirements.

Aside from the legal authority there are other issues. If a business can discriminate on the basis of occupation (assuming the risk is equivalent for the favored and disfavored occupations) then why can’t they discriminate on the basis of skin color, religion, gender, etc.? Perhaps, from a philosophical viewpoint, should they be allowed this freedom. But I’m not comfortable with that conclusion either.

Thoughts?

Quote of the day—Karin @karincpryor

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We are watching what is not only the best speech Joe Biden ever made … we’re watching a speech for the ages. And it’s exactly what we need at the exact time we need it.

Karin @karincpryor
Tweeted on September 1, 2022
[President Biden is such a uniter. He should be made president for life.*—Joe]

* While Karin is not being sarcastic I am.

Quote of the day—Ima Private Person @ImaPrivate

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I officially apologize to anyone who feels their penis is too small and buys large guns to compensate.

Ima Private Person @ImaPrivate
Tweeted on June 17, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!

Via a tweet from In Chains @InChainsInJail.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Carmine Sabia @CarmineSabia

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Joe Biden used MAGA the way other dictators have used people of certain races and religions. It was pure evil. The president of the United States declared war on half the nation in an attempt to hang on to power.

Carmine Sabia @CarmineSabia
Tweeted on September 2, 2022
[I’m so glad we were able to elect someone who could unite us again inside of the previous guy who was so divisive.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rob Picheta

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Across England and Wales, knife-related crime is at its highest level since 2011, with the year ending March 2018 having seen a 16% increase from the previous 12 months, the Office of National Statistics says.

…

The issue has also received international attention, in part due to US President Donald Trump’s comment in May that an unnamed London hospital was like a “war zone,” with “blood all over the floors” due to knife crime. Trump did not provide detail or evidence for his assertion.

Rob Picheta
November 6, 2018
UK children have highest risk of being stabbed on way home from school, study finds
[I find this interesting in multiple ways.

  • Picheta laments the high level of “knife-related crime”, yet a couple paragraphs latter suggests that Trump made an unfounded assertion. Is Picheta’s memory span that short?
  • “Knife crime”. They have banned almost all guns and many knives. Carrying a knife in public, with a very few exceptions, is illegal there. Perhaps they should consider criminal control rather than inanimate object control.
  • It is further support for Just one question.

See also Knife Control.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Letitia James

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Responsible gun control measures save lives and any attempts by the gun lobby to tear down New York’s sensible gun control laws will be met with fierce defense of the law,

Letitia James
August 31, 2022
New York to enact new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decision
[I read this and hear the echoes of politicians responding to the 1865 passage of the 13th Amendment with the Jim Crow laws.

It probably will take at least a full generation before hey will lose the power and prestige they know belongs to them and their ilk. But eventually we will laugh at them as they are marginalized, finally lose their grip on power, and are occasionally prosecuted as the lash out with violence at their frustration of losing so much.—Joe]

They must need more gun control

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The Seattle area,via their dominance of state politics, pushed a bunch of gun control down our throats in the last ten years. They promised us less “gun crime” for the tax on gun sales (Seattle only) the extended waiting periods, the standard capacity magazine bans, the training requirements for semi-auto rifles, and the banning of sales to people under the age of 21.

You would think with all those “gun safety” laws Seattle would be much safer now than it was ten years ago. Some people don’t see it that way:

A good August is when nothing happens. But this one has been more like the devil’s month, as some call it in South America.

During a time that, one hoped, was going to mark some summer recovery from the social dislocations of the pandemic, Seattle is instead continuing to slide backward — dangerously so in the areas of street crime and drugs.

Seattle has seen 11 homicides this month — making this the deadliest single month in the city as far back as the police’s crime dashboard has records (to 2008). The previous high for any month was nine homicides, and for any August before this one, six.

They must need still more gun control and defunding of the police.*

If that is their response then you know it’s not about “safety” or prevention of “gun crime”. It means they are delusional and/or it is about the control of ordinary people and/or the destruction of our society.

* Sarcasm.

Quote of the day—Max Weisman

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Advertisements on public transit should not subliminally advocate for the purchase of firearms.

Max Weisman
August 29, 2022
Advertising dollars are powerful—When it comes to gun violence prevention, Philadelphia’s ads can do better.
[This tyrant want-to-be openly states his intent to infringe upon the First Amendment as well as the Second Amendment.

I could see a better case being made that firearms related advertisements are public service announcements and should receive discounts.

At least it is nice to have his crimes documented. I hope he enjoys his trial.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Robb @johnrobb

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21st Century planned scarcity.

As in, “let’s not expand into space for energy and resource acquisition, or take the actions on earth necessary in the short term (nuclear power), because scarcity induced totalitarianism is much safer, just, and deserved.”

John Robb @johnrobb
Tweeted on August 28, 2022
[It’s the ongoing conflict between centrally planned and free markets.Or the zero-sum versus non zero-sum mindset. There exist people who crave and even insist on control. These people believe there MUST be someone, organization, or something in control. They are certain they and the world are a better place if control is exerted over a wide set of peoples action.

Some people believe the world would be a better place if most property and (possibly “or” instead of “and”, but this would be rare when you get down to the details) economic decisions are controlled by some supposedly superior being. This superior being is typically a government controlled by a committee and/or a dictator. These people fall in a spectrum that can generally be considered socialist to communist.

Some people believe the world would be a better place if social position and activity decisions (particularly sexual behaviors) are controlled by some supposedly superior being. This superior being is typically a government controlled or at least guided by a set of religious leaders. These people fall in a spectrum that can generally be considered democratic theists, many monarchists, to theocrats.

In the more general case people can be classified as being on a scale from anarchist to authoritarian. Here I am referring to the somewhat less common definition of anarchist as the organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or hierarchical government rather than a state of disorder and chaos.

All social organizations have tradeoff. And under various situations some organizational types are vastly superior to others. For example an anarchist society does not do well against a communist society in search of hosts to satisfy their parasitic requirements. Yet, not too far up the spectrum from anarchist a society with government formed for the protection can economically and technologically, hence militarily defeat a similarly sized society near the authoritarian end of the spectrum.

I find our current political climate annoying because, as Robb indirectly points out above, a frightening number of people are demanding “progress” toward authoritarian government. There is actually a “sweet spot”, by many measures of societal “health”, which lies far closer to the anarchist end of the scale. This is an old, and mostly ignored, observation. History appears to be nearing another catastrophic rhyme.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jefferson Mack

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They may try to take our freedom away. Somebody is out there planning it right now. But there is a surprise waiting for them, a spirit they don’t understand.

Every man with a radar detector in his car, anyone who ever cheated on an income-tax form, every seventeen-year- old who has figured out how to buy a bottle of beer, every- one who knows the taste of out-of-season trout, every driver who ignored a parking ticket, anyone who ever made some wine in the cellar but neglected to fill out the federal form the law requires, every woman who needed and got an abortion back when they were illegal, every man that’s made an illegal bet on a football game, every bureaucrat that blew a whistle and embarrassed the guy at the top all these people are already secret freedom fighters.

You are out there waiting, waiting for the day when things get serious, when the people in charge stop trying to limit freedom and start trying to take it away altogether. You will be free, because you will insist on it.

Jefferson Mack
1986
Secret Freedom Fighter: Fighting Tyranny without Terrorizing the Innocent, page 5.
[Read the whole thing.—Joe]

Progress

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Winning firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time.*

A federal judge has struck down a Texas law preventing individuals aged 18 to 20 years from carrying handguns in public, in the first major court ruling on Second Amendment rights since the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

…

The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), which brought the lawsuit here, hailed the new court ruling.

This doesn’t directly matter much to me or my children but my grandchildren may benefit from this in another decade or two.

* It was the Second Amendment Foundation which originally claimed the mission statement after the McDonald decision. But more recently it appears the FPC has been racking up the greater score. It is a target rich environment so there is room for many players to score points.

Quote of the day—Badlieutenant @badlieutenantX

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Guns can’t make your penis bigger or stop you from being a virgin

Badlieutenant @badlieutenantX
Tweeted on June 4, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!

I presume he is sharing this because he had to learn it from personal experience.

Via a tweet from In Chains @InChainsInJail.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Aidan Johnston

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It proves what GOA has been saying for decades, which is that the origin of gun control is racist.

Gun laws come from a majority trying to suppress or dominate or control a minority, whether it be a minority of Catholics in early America, or a minority of Native Americans when there’s colonials trying to take over the continent.

Aidan Johnston
Gun Owners of America director of federal affairs
August 23, 2022
New York Trying To Resurrect Racist Laws To Restrict Gun Ownership
[New York City’s Sullivan act of 1911, restricting purchase and carry, was openly known to be racist and celebrated by the NY Times for this:

The first person convicted under the law was an Italian immigrant named Marino Rossi who was traveling to a job interview and carrying a revolver for fear of the Black Hand. At sentencing the judge declared: “It is unfortunate that this is the custom with you and your kind, and that fact, combined with your irascible nature, furnishes much of the criminal business in this country.” Prior to Marino’s arrest, others had been arrested under the new law but were released without charges. Whether this was part of the law’s intent, it was passed on a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Italian rhetoric as a measure to disarm an alleged Italian and immigrant criminal element. The police department who granted the licenses could easily discriminate against “undesirable” elements. Days before the law took effect The New York Times published an article saying “Low-browed foreigners bargained for weapons of every description and gloated over their good fortune in hearing of the drop in the gun market before it was too late”. After Rossi’s conviction The New York Times called this “warning to the Italian community” both “timely and exemplary”.

And, as can be expected today, Sullivan, the creator of this racist anti-gun law, was a Democrat.

Today’s Democrats are invoking even earlier laws which prohibited native Americans and Catholics from exercising their rights to keep and bear arms as justification for modern day infringements.

They have no shame. I hope they enjoy their trials.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Adam Kotsko @adamkotsko

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My ideal land use distribution (based heavily on KSR): all agricultural land is collectively owned and scientifically managed to balance quantity, quality, and variety of food against sustainability and ethical practices. No single-family or corporate for-profit farms.

Adam Kotsko @adamkotsko
Tweeted on August 22, 2022
[I think “KSR” means “Knowledge and Social Responsibility.”

As collective farms have always worked out so well when and wherever they have been attempted.

As Robb Allen @ItsRobbAllen said:

My God, the hubris & ignorance to believe this level of central management is even possible is simply breathtaking.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Hypersonic bullets

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These are believed to be good for anti-material. Not so good for animals you plan to eat:

China is working to downsize its hypersonic weapons program to the small arms level, as seen in recent tests of prototype hypersonic bullets on live targets.

Researchers from an army medical center in Chongqing recently fired 5-millimeter steel projectiles at Mach 11 speeds against sedated live pigs to understand the effects of hypersonic bullets on human targets, the South China Morning Post reported this week.

Citing a paper from the Acta Armamentarii peer-reviewed journal of the China Ordnance Society, the South China Morning Post report noted that hypersonic bullet shots to the thigh did not instantly kill the pigs but caused severe injuries throughout their bodies.

The news report said that the pigs sustained extensive internal damage, mainly bone fractures and bleeding in the intestine, lung, bladder and brain.

It said that the bullets penetrated the thigh at speeds between 1,000 to 3,000 meters per second, but at 4,000 meters per second, the rounds instead left a large wound cavity at the point of impact.

…

The report also said such hits resulted in crater-like wounds, liquefying both bullet and flesh.

4,000 m/s is 13,123 f/s. A typical 9mm handgun bullet is typically traveling about 1,100 f/s at the muzzle. A 5.56 NATO bullet fired from “weapon of war” which “explodes the heads of children”* is typically a little over 3,200 f/s at the muzzle.

I expect they will, or perhaps already have, done testing on human targets as well as pigs. The CCP is like that.

* Registered trademark of the Gifford’s Group.

This is what they think of you

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I don’t identify as Republican but for those of you who do. This is what New York State Governor Hochul thinks of you:

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who hasn’t proven shy about issuing orders, had one for the state’s Republicans this week — all 5.4 million of them: “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?” she said. “You are not New Yorkers.”

If you can move beyond the frankly disgusting political partisanship and intolerance, her message is fiscally irresponsible, even dangerous. The governor probably already knows this, but the state’s extensive public sector is heavily reliant on personal income taxes paid by residents, and with nearly $14 billion in projected budget gaps over the next five years, it can’t afford to lose any taxpayers, let alone 5.4 million of them.

The Empire State has already lost 1.5 million residents in the past decade, and there’s no sign of that trend letting up. In fact, more than 350,000 New Yorkers relocated during the 12 pandemic-plagued months leading up to July 1, 2021.

I suspect she cares even less for “my type” of people than she does Republicans.

I find it interesting that parasites, left unchecked, destroy their hosts. However some, such as your gut bacteria, evolve into a symbiotic relationship and are kept under control by the host.

This appears to be true at all level from a virus all the way down to communists. Hochul apparently doesn’t know the number of known cures for her type of parasitic infection are limited and don’t involve a long term symbiotic relationship.

A good start

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U.S. Judge Throws Out Texas Gun Ban For Young Adults After Supreme Court Ruling:

A federal judge in Texas threw out the state’s ban on people between 18 and 20 years old from carrying handguns on Thursday in what appears to be the first major judicial decision since a landmark ruling on weapons rights by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.

The challenge to the Texas statute that bans young adults not in active military service from having handguns in public was filed in 2021 by the Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun-owners’ rights group.

I (with my employer matching component) donate over $1,000/year to Firearms Policy Coalition Action Foundation. These donations are tax deductible.

There are other cases triggered by the Bruen decision working their way through the courts. The most important being the challenges to “assault weapons” and magazine sizes. I expect these will take several months if not years to actually bear results that make a difference. But getting the ban on 18 year-old people from carrying guns is a good start.