Via email from PKoning:
Today’s WSJ had an article about a group that’s ridiculing Putin online, calling itself “NAFO”. The article came with a photo of a mural on a building depicting “St. Javelin”. It reminded me of an article a week earlier, describing the “ragtag army” that saved Kyiv from the invading Russians. One of the soldiers featured in that article is a lady anti-tank missile operator, who in civilian life was a journalist.
As depicted in popular media:
In real life:
![clip_image001[4]](https://blog.joehuffman.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/clip_image0014.jpg "clip_image001[4]")
Via CF Active @ActiveCf:
Well, duh!
Carbon Dioxide Seems to Be Making Trees Grow Faster, Scientists Say
Amid serious concerns about the climate effects of carbon dioxide, scientists have discovered something intriguing — that trees appear to be growing faster and larger as levels of the compound rise.
In a press release, environmental researchers at Ohio State University claimed that the rate and size at which forests are growing may already be counteracting the worst effects of climate change.
“Forests are taking carbon out of the atmosphere at a rate of about 13 percent of our gross emissions,” Brent Sohngen, co-author of the school’s study published recently in Nature Communications and OSU professor of environmental and resource economics, said. “While we’re putting billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we’re actually taking much of it out just by letting our forests grow.”
I suspect farm and garden crop yields are also improving.
People who want CO2 emissions reduced want people to starve*.
* Yeah, it is an absurd statement. But, if gun owners insisting the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms not be infringed means we want school children murdered then environmentalist should be able to suck it up when they are accused of wanting people to starve.
The progressives demanding new debt-financed programs to take advantage of low interest rates did not acknowledge that Washington is already on course to borrow $114 trillion over 30 years just to finance current programs.
Brian Riedl
September 20, 2022
Expected Interest Rate Hike Will Add $2 Trillion to the Deficit
[Prepare appropriately.—Joe]
People convicted of violent felonies were not prohibited from purchasing or possessing guns under federal law until 1934. It wasn’t until the 1968 Gun Control Act when that prohibition was extended to all felonies and to people with a history of drug abuse or mental illness. Background checks were not mandated by federal law until 1994, and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System didn’t start until 1998. States didn’t begin criminalizing domestic violence until the 1900s, and federal law didn’t prohibit people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor offenses from getting a firearm until 1996.
Chip Brownlee
July 19, 2022
The Real Significance of the Supreme Court’s Gun Decision
[This is from The Trace.
It is nice for them to admit this. Because these laws are far newer than when the 2nd Amendment was ratified, the Bruen decision will almost certainly mean these laws are vulnerable to being thrown out as unconstitutional.
It is long road but the signage to a win is easily visible.—Joe]
No one wants to take away your ‘right’ to own your small penis compensating firearms.
That’s a stu*id dog whistle for you gun nutters.
Lizbeth Adams @Lizbeth69108338
Tweeted on June 20, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!
“No one wants to take away your firearms?” Really? Who are you going to believe? Her or your lying eyes?—Joe]
The research also found that gun owners who are receptive to regulations feel alienated by the current national conversation. They have a fundamentally different view than most gun-safety activists and pro-reform politicians who don’t own guns. Whereas someone like me sees guns as dangerous, gun owners typically see them as a way to keep safe. Whereas I associate guns exclusively with harm, gun owners see them as a tool that can be used for good or bad purposes. This helps explain a widespread conviction among gun owners: that policy should focus on “keeping guns out of the wrong hands,” not on bans of certain types of weapons or attempts to reduce the number of guns in the country. Another survey found that most gun owners believe that gun-reform advocates ultimately want to take their guns away. This belief makes them mistrustful and reluctant to speak out for any reforms at all — the “slippery slope” argument.
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
September 21, 2022
Will Gun Owners Fight for Stronger Gun Laws? — A new group, which includes two former NRA lobbyists, is betting on it
[Yet another gun control group. How many have failed now? Yet they keep trying to put lipstick on the pig.
While she has a better understanding of her opposition than most anti-gun people she has certain important “facts” wrong. For example she apparently believes:
Siegel has found that the majority of gun owners support four laws shown to be effective: universal background checks, prohibitions for those convicted of violent misdemeanors, permits for concealed carry, and permits for gun purchases and possession. He estimates that if all four were implemented, firearm homicides would decline by 35 percent.
Technically this may be true. But it is extremely deceptive in it’s wording.
“Firearm homicide” includes defensive use of firearms. Even if it did only include murder by firearm it does not mean it would decrease the murder rate because criminals substitute other weapons when firearms become difficult to obtain.
There are other weasel words and phrases in this claim as well as outright lies which I will leave as an exercise for the reader.
And the last point I would like to make is that she totally ignores the Bruen decision.—Joe]
The U.S. attorney’s office said the law to prohibit those under felony indictment from obtaining guns does not interfere with the Second Amendment “because it does not disarm felony indictees who already had guns and does not prohibit possession or public carry.”
Jolie McCullough
September 19, 2022
Texas judge rules that people under felony indictment have the right to buy guns under the Second Amendment
[As I understand it, this Federal Prosecutor is making the argument that the law prohibiting the purchase of a firearm by someone with a felony indictment is constitutional because the person can continue to possess and carry any existing firearms they own. But can’t the defense attorney also claim because their client is allowed to keep and use any firearm they already own the law against purchase is nonsensical, serves no purpose, and the client has harmed no one despite breaking a law? Or is this one of those cases where you just have to say, “It’s just a law. It doesn’t have to make sense?”—Joe]
Gun-control groups want this freedom issue framed as a “safety issue,” with gun control as the solution; as in, if the elites just had the power to ban, confiscate or deeply restrict the use of firearms, they could save the people. That’s nonsense, of course, as history shows again and again that disarmed peoples are not and do not remain free; “safe” is not an adjective the people of Venezuela, to give one example, would now use to describe their situation.
Frank Miniter
September 21, 2022
This Is Not A Culture War
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
A supervolcano has had its alert level increased in the wake of 700 earthquakes occurring nearby.
Taupō volcano, which is a supervolcano situated underneath New Zealand‘s largest lake, Lake Taupō, had its Volcanic Alert Level (VAL) increased from 0 to 1 on September 20. Level 1 indicates minor volcanic unrest, according to GeoNet, a geological hazard agency in New Zealand.
Lake Taupō sits within the giant caldera of a supervolcano on New Zealand’s North Island, roughly six miles above the magma chamber. The volcano has erupted 25 times in the last 12,000 years, most recently in the year A.D. 232, resulting in the largest and most violent eruption on Earth in the past 5,000 years.
If it erupted 25 times in the last 12,000 years, that is an average of once every 480 years. With the most recent eruption in 232, then it is “overdue” (these things are not anywhere near that regular) by about 1,300 years.
Even now, pools of water 30 miles away boil from the heat.
By definition, a super volcano erupts with 1,000 km3 (about 240 cubic miles – a cube of material over 6.2 miles on a side) of material ejected. An eruption like that will give us some “climate change” to deal with.
Prepare appropriately.
The creation of a Merchant Category Code for sales at U.S. gun stores will not only not accomplish its intended goal, but is rife for misuse and abuse. Missourians value their Second Amendment rights and oppose any attempts to create a de-facto gun registry. I’m proud to stand up for those rights and will oppose this decision by the major credit card companies at every turn.
Eric Schmitt
Missouri Attorney General
September 21, 2022
Missouri Attorney General slams credit card companies for violation of Second Amendment rights
[Twenty four attorneys general signed a letter sent to American Express, Master Card and VISA CEOs. I can’t imagine this accomplishing anything more than some positive publicity for the signers of the letter. But it doesn’t hurt our cause any either.—Joe]
At the time of its enactment ATF had testified that crime with registered full autos were virtually nonexistent. I did quite a bit of research, and had only found 3-4 homicides in which one was used (two I think were by LEOs), over an 80+ year period (I also found one use in self-defense). So how could the 1986 ban be justified, except as a completely arbitrary decision? Bruen of course rules out balancing tests, but in practice that will weigh on every judge’s mind, “what will I look like if I strike that down?” For the 1986 ban, the answer would be “I merely struck down a law that had been aimed at a problem that didn’t exist.”
David Hardy
September 7, 2022
My latest law review manuscript is online
[When you think about it, a realistic path to legalizing access to new machine guns is pretty amazing compared to the dark ages of the 1990s.—Joe]
The demand for White supremacy vastly outstrips the supply of White supremacy. We have more people assigned to investigate White supremacists than we can actually find.
Anonymous FBI Agent
September 16, 2022
Biden Reportedly Pressuring FBI to ‘Cook Up’ White Supremacy Cases
[When a government can not find enough criminals to meet their needs (in this case it is for the suppression of their political opposition) they will create them.
Prepare appropriately.—Joe]
UN warns up to 345 million people marching toward starvation:
The U.N. food chief warned Thursday that the world is facing “a global emergency of unprecedented magnitude,” with up to 345 million people marching toward starvation — and 70 million pushed closer to starvation by the war in Ukraine.
Because of the wettest and longest spring we have ever experienced, my brothers on the farm were only able to get about 1/3 of the spring crop in this year. The little bit of lentils they were able to plant did not yield nearly as much as usual. I think the mid-west yields are below average as well.
We live in interesting times.
But seriously guys, learn a few skills to make your partner happy & NO ONE will care about your penis size
Brandishing the #1 choice of mass shooters — that recently pulverized 19 school children into unidentifiable bloody mush, decapitating 2 — will not attract quality partners
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]
Here’s the loophole in the new regulation that software developers are exploiting: if the jig isn’t part of the “kit,” then there’s no firearm under the latest definition and hence no required background check. Specifically, the rule states that when an unfinished frame or receiver is “distributed or possessed with a compatible jig or template,” it is now automatically considered to be a firearm. Leave out the jig, however, and the” kit” is incomplete and doesn’t fall under the rule.
Bob Adelmann
September 14, 2022
New Software Negates Latest “Ghost Gun” Rules
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
We do not believe private companies should serve as moral arbiters. Asking private companies to decide what legal products or services can or cannot be bought and from what store sets a dangerous precedent. Further, it would be an invasion of consumers’ privacy for banks and payment networks to know each of our most personal purchasing habits. Visa is firmly against this.
VISA
September 13, 2022
Visa Warns Merchant Codes Won’t Show Customer Gun Purchases
[It would seem to me that VISA could decisively limit future activities by these anti-gun and other moral busybodies. They could cancel all credit cards owned by the politicians and activists who contributed to this B.S.
It won’t happen, but it’s a pleasant thought.
New York decided to add a First Amendment violation as a bit of sauce to flavor the violation of the Second Amendment. The law is clumsily crafted. It’s not entirely clear whether I would be committing a crime if I forgot to include a LinkedIn account that I had not used for three years but that did exist in the past three years. It’s not clear whether law enforcement could disqualify carry permits based on content from five years ago. Could my overheated remarks about Jesuits or the pope disqualify me? There is no guidance.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
September 9, 2022
September Begins Gun-Control Season in New York
[We need a Prosecute Rights Violators Season. I would like to suggest a season that starts every January 1st and ends December 31st.—Joe]
Imagine thinking “encouraging minorities to build their own firearms in order to defend themselves” is a “fascist” position to take.
These people are insane.
In Chains @InChainsInJail
Tweeted on September 13, 2022
[This was in response to this tweet by coderedamerica.com@coderedamerica
Replying to @RICECUTTA0 @OleGelo5 and @POTUS
@FBI @FBIWFO here is a great thread to follow especially with people like @SamuelWhittemo3 involved. Nothing spells fascist like a maga follower pretending to be a christian and promoting ghost guns.
Words mean things and there are dictionaries which can be referenced determine those meanings when you are unsure. But some people see words meaning whatever suits their purpose as the time. Others see them as just sounds they make which give them some sort of satisfaction.
My first awareness of this was in conversations I attempted to follow with a particular family. Read my comments at that link!
This family trait was a source of considerable bafflement and some amusement to me. But things didn’t really “click” for me until, as I reported in the linked post, I was told my inability to resolve a contradiction in what someone had said was unimportant:
Oh Joe, it doesn’t matter. We are just talking.
They were just making sounds at each other. It was sort of like humming to a baby to help it go to sleep.
Casual conversation is one thing. Legal definitions is another. My first recollection of having frustrations with this was in “assault weapon” ban of ‘94. What does “shall not be infringed” mean to these people? The issue was brought into clarity when I realized it was, at least sometimes, deliberate deception using the definition of words.
Other examples:
See also, Speech Is Not Violence by John Stossel.
And redefining, or perhaps more accurate in many cases “undefining”, words applies to people who job depends upon the precise meaning of words.
As much clarity as I discovered on my own since my first awareness 30 or 40 years ago, this is not a new thing. Greater minds than mine made the practice far more clear pointed out the dangers. Lewis Carroll is one such example in his book Through the Looking Glass:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
Circling back to the QOTD by In Chains above is something my daughter Jaime asked of me a few days ago:
Please look up the definition of “fascism” in your old timey dictionary*.
Here is the result:
Fascism The principles or methods of the Fascisti—Fascist, I. A member of the Fascisti. II. Of or pertaining to the Fascisti.
Fascisti … The members of a patriotic society in Italy, animated by a strong national spirit, and organized in connection with a repressive movement directed against the socialists and communists and the disturbances excited by them during 1919 and the years following, which regarded the government as criminally negligent in failing to deal with these disturbances, and took measure on its own account, often violent ones, to combat them, and which developed into a powerful party obtaining political control of the country in Oct., 1922, under its founder and leader, Benito Mussolini, as prime minister; hence, the members of a similar society or party elsewhere.
This definition is not the same as what is commonly used today but perhaps it has a hint of something more accurate than many people think. The people being called fascists typically are opposed to socialism and communism. But the violence component does not appear to have manifested itself.
So, is In Chains correct when he says, “These people are insane.”? Perhaps. I’m nearly certain some people redefining or undefining words have mental issues. Others, perhaps most, wish to be the master.
* “Old timey dictionary” means the unabridged The New Century Dictionary Copyright 1946, 1944, 1942, 1938, 1936,1934, 1933, 1931, 1929, 1927.
I received this email yesterday:
Joe,
Long time reader but not a comments kind of guy. I was hoping maybe you can contribute or share this info.
A buddy of mine is suspended without pay for refusing to get vaccinated and is currently in court over this issue. The Go Fund Me link has all the details. He is looking for financial help for the legal expenses.
I thought you might be interested in supporting this GoFundMe, https://gofund.me/511282ac.
Even a small donation could help Jonathan Lucas reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.
Thanks for taking a look!
I have mixed feelings about this. Government mandates? NO WAY!!! Private mandate? Hmmm…. maybe. Your mileage may vary. I’d be interested in your thoughts.
I donated a little bit. The link given to me after my donation was https://gofund.me/cc1fcb01.