Month: August 2009

Wait Laws Don’t Change Around the Obamessiah

Sweet, the White House actually stated that laws don’t changed just because the Obamessiah is in town. This in relation to citizens legally carrying guns to the health care events. Straight from the horses mouth:

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. “There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally,” he said. “Those laws don’t change when the president comes to your state or locality.”

We all knew this was true but it’s nice to hear a White House official come out and state it. Of course the anti-gun crowd aren’t amused:

“What Gibbs said is wrong,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “Individuals carrying loaded weapons at these events require constant attention from police and Secret Service officers. It’s crazy to bring a gun to these events. It endangers everybody.”

Such hysteria. You know it’s almost adorable when Paul’s mouth starts frothing and he begins screaming gibberish whilst swinging his head back and forth getting froth on anybody within a few feet. I would like him to state how people legally carrying guns endangers anybody with the exception of criminals who may show up to do something nefarious.

In fact due to the large number of people there and the possibility there could be criminals meaning to bring harm upon unarmed civilians I believe it’s dangerous and irresponsible for legally able people not to carry their guns to these events. And because I like to correct people when they’re wrong:

Monday, a man with an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle strapped to his shoulder was outside a veterans’ event in Phoenix.

There is no such thing as a semi-automatic assault rifle. And assault rifle by definition is able to switch from semi-automatic to full-automatic or burst fire mode. If it can do either of the last two on that short list it’s not an assault rifle.

Crap! It’s the Drama Llama

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about a certain man carrying a certain AR rifle at a certain rally. Well this story has brought forth the wrath of the drama llama. People in the gun community are talking about this more than those not in the community and the opinions are varied. Well I’m throwing my opinion in the rink. But first I draw your attention to Rob Allen’s post. It mostly sums up my views on this as well.

I’m completely for the unnamed man carrying that AR rifle because of two things. The first is the simple fact it’s his right and society should never feel there are times when it’s not appropriate to exercise your rights. Sure if you don’t like guns and a person is carrying a gun on your property you can tell him to leave, it’s your property but this was being done on public land hence nobody should be able to tell him to leave.

But my second reason why I’m for this is exposure. We are always talking about open carry protests, picnics, and other assorted gatherings. It is believed that these gatherings will raise awareness and hopefully desensitize people to the sight of guns. It appears to be working as more and more people are saying they are for carry laws and I’ve noticed less people are freaking out when they see somebody with a gun. Well why should we change our tune on this when it comes to “evil black rifles?” How often do you hear us pro-gun people say guns are just tools and nothing more? If that’s what we truly believe then we need to be consistent and treat all guns as tools.

I do understand where the pro-gun people who are against this man come from. Yes he could be bad PR for our movement. But as they say in industry no publicity is bad publicity. The bias media is going to turn any pro-gun event into a threat to man kind style event. This is not something we can control, period. What we can control is how people perceive gun owners. If they see many of us walking around with rifles over our shoulders peacefully they will eventually realize we are peaceful regardless of the type of weapon we are carrying.

Anybody Could be a Threat

Many people get in the habit of assuming anybody who comes to their home in a uniform is supposed to be there. Aubrey Isakson is not one of those suckers. When Robert Benjamin, a Verizon technician, said he needed access to Mr. Isakson’s apartment, Mr. Isakson did the smart thing and demanded to see the technician’s ID first. Smart move, everybody should verify the identify of anybody whom they do not know that asks to enter their apartment. Well Mr. Benjamin responded by pounding the shit out of Mr. Isakson. From the story:

“You want to know my name? Here’s my name,” Benjamin snarled, slapping his ID card into Isakson’s face, according to Isakson’s account of the December 2008 confrontation.

“The guy essentially snapped. He cold-cocked me, hit me two or three solid shots to the head while my hands were down,” said Isakson, a limo driver.

He said the pounding bloodied his face and broke his glasses.

But things got uglier, Isakson said, when Benjamin squeezed him around the neck and pressed him up against the wall.

“He’s prepared to kill me,” Isakson said. “That’s all I could think of.”

Anytime there is a potential threat you need to be alert. I’ll be honest I carry all the time, even when at home. I do this because it’s safer for me and it’s honestly quite comfortable since I have a good holster. If I were in a similar situation I believe my Ruger LCP would have been out of the pocket and in the technicians gut. Of course bullets would only be needed had he continues but most people get the message when a gun is presented.

The lesson here is also be at least in condition yellow when presented with an unknown person at your household.

Being Cheap without Being Cheap

There are many ways to save a little money here and there. Although this may not seems like a lot of money in the end it will begin building up. One easy way to save money is by examining usage cases of products you intend to buy in the future.

What am I talking about here? It’s simple really, whenever you are buying a product conduct a survey in your head on whether or not you’ll need particular features of the “better” model or not. For example having that nice $1,000 scope on a rifle is nice but if you’re only going to be shooting at ranges with 100 yards it’s a rather unneeded item.

This topic will discuss a simple way doing a usage case can save you a large amount of money by considering the purchase of a computer. Computers usually have a notorious number of possible upgrades. These upgrades usually become exponentially more expensive as the performance increase. Let’s look at processors for an instance.

This case will be greatly simplified in that processor A, B, and C are equal in every regard except clock speed. Processor A runs at 2.5 GHz, processor B runs at 3.0 GHz, and processor C runs at 3.4 GHz. Now let’s say the cost of processor A is $100, the cost of processor B is $200, and the cost of processor C is $350. As you get more speed the cost goes up while the amount gained becomes less each time.

Going from processor A to processor B costs an additional $100 and nets you 500 MHz. Meanwhile moving from processor B to processor C costs you an additional $150 and only nets you 400 MHz. Obviously the cost to performance ratio is better when going from processor A to processor B then it is when going to processor B to processor C. Which processor should you get? Obviously processor C is the fastest.

Many people often go with processor C because they equate more speed is better. But they could save themselves $150 to $250 by decided what they do with a computer. Let’s say all you do is browse the web and read e-mail. Neither of these tasks use much in the way of processor speed and processor A will easily fit your needs. Now let’s say you want to play some high end games, you may get some advantage out of buying processor B in that case but the additional 500 MHz probably won’t be apparent to your. Likewise while playing a game you generally aren’t using other applications so the game will get optimal use of the processor.

The same thing can be said for RAM. Once again browsing the web and checking e-mail doesn’t require much RAM while playing high end games takes considerably more. But you really aren’t going to need more then 4 GB of RAM on a current game since most of them are still written to work on 32-bit platforms. This saves you money on RAM and allows you to use a 32-bit operating system that will be more backwards compatible than it’s 64-bit equivalent.

This basic principal can be applied to almost anything you buy. Yes getting a piston drive AR rifle may allow you to shoot more rounds without cleaning it but if you clean it regularly why sink the additional cost into the piston driven system? If you have a standard definition television and don’t plan on upgrading any time in the future why pay the extra money on a Blu-Ray player? You won’t notice any difference but will have paid far more money for the player and the movies.

You don’t have to be cheap to save money. Just be smart about think about what you want to do with anything you buy. Then ask yourself if you’ll really use any additional features of the more expensive model or not. I bring this up because a friend of mine was going to purchase a $4,000 computer but was able to get a $1,500 one after doing a little usage analysis. That’s a large chunk of money for simply taking half an hour to think about what he actually does with his computer.

Many people end up having financial troubles because they simply buy the most expensive version of what they want. Yes a Geo Metro may not be a good car for a family but you probably don’t need to sink all of that money into a Chevrolet Suburban either. Something int he middle would most likely best suffice. Why buy a $500,000 home when you really only need a $200,000 one? Usage analysis is a valuable and free tool, use it.

Obama’s Anti-Gun OSHA Nominee

Via the NRA ILA comes a story about Obama’s nominee, David Michaels, for the head of Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It’s not surprising that an Obama nominee would be anti-gun nor that the anti-gunner would be places in a position of such power. Nope certainly not surprising, but concerning.

OSHA has a lot of power being they dictate what is considered public health issues and what are not. If they believe something is a public health issue they can enact measures requiring employers to ban it. If the new nominee were to set his sights on guns he could very well enact policies that would require employees to disallow people from possessing guns while at work. Many employers currently will allow a person to carry a firearm if they have a carry license but OSHA could override this through regulations. Looking at the blog entry by Mr. Michaels I wouldn’t be surprised if he did decide to make guns an OSHA policy issue.

We need to contact our senators and tell them to bar Mr. Michael’s from becoming the head of OSHA.

Remember a Disarmed Society is a Safer Society

At least that’s what Wisconsin’s governor keeps saying. Well Mayor of Milwaukee, Tom Barrett, may be changing his tune. Well he probably won’t be but either way he got his ass beaten with a pipe. From the story:

“The mayor stopped and said something (to the man) like, ‘Let’s all cool down here, I’m going to call 911,'” the mayor’s spokesman Patrick Curley said. “He said it one or two times according to him. When he took out his phone, that’s when the suspect attacked him.”

The suspect hit Barrett in the head and torso with a metal pipe. Barrett apparently fought back, fracturing his hand when he punched the suspect.

You know what may have helped prevent Mr. Barrett from getting hit by that pipe, a gun. Shocking I know but a gun versus a pipe is a pretty easy fight to guess the outcome of. Of course being a member of Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns horde I doubt he’ll change his tune. And he’ll probably continue spouting anti-gun propaganda on top of it all.

Hey Britain How’s the Gun Ban Working

I’m once again asking Britain how it’s almost total ban on guns is turning out. Apparently not so hot as there are about four stories involving guns in Britain.

The first article tells a story that should be impossible in Britain. A man was shot in the head in Rotherhithe. The man was taken to the hospital where he apparently is receiving treatment. I’m still baffled that a man was shot in Britain. Didn’t the shooter know they don’t allow people to have guns there?

Next up the police are looking for a 16 year old kid who is suspected of shooting somebody. There is a £15,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. How he could have helped murder somebody with a gun is still a complete mystery.

For our third story a man was apparently gunned down by police after shooting at them. The police were unaware of the fact that the gun only fire blanks (Not their fault.). Yet the gun looked real and that makes it an imitation of a firearm which is illegal there. Remember it’s not just a gun ban but a anything that looks like a gun ban. Somehow this one made it through the gun ban barrier though.

Finally two people are being charged for attempted murder. Their preferred instrument for the attempted murder was nothing less then a evil shotgun. Of course there are means of acquiring a shotgun in Britain but it involves a ton of paper work and licensing. Well either this 55 year old grandmother and 17 year old kid did that or they had the gun illegally which should be impossible as there are laws against possession of a gun illegally. I mean that’s exactly what makes it illegal!

So Britain how is the gun ban working out for you?

Recession Hits Chicago’s Annual Gun Buy Back Program

Man the anti-gunners are losing again and again. It’s almost as if people believe in the right to bear arms. Every year Chicago, the safest place on Earth thanks to their draconian gun laws, holds a gun buy back program. Too bad for them people aren’t donating money like they used to:

Last year, about $130,000 was collected. This year, only $50,000 has come in. An assault weapon will still be worth $100. And BB guns and replicas once again will bring $10.

Because of the funding issue surrendering a handgun only nets you $50.00 of dirty money instead of $100.00. Maybe it’s the hard economy, maybe it’s the fact more and more people are waking up and realizing disarming our populace isn’t a good thing, or maybe it’s a little bit of both. Either way it’s nice to see this program floundering as it only gets honest citizens to turn in guns while the criminals keep theirs.

Sheriff Says Civilians Better Shots than Police

Here is an interesting story from Sharp as a Marble. There is a debate going in Columbia, Missouri to determine if people with permits to carry pistols should be allowed to be armed at the local high school. The debate is raging because the smart people realize having armed faculty could stop a mass murdered before he killed enough people to be considered a mass murder.

The local police showed up to comment. The first comment that was made by a law enforcement officer was the stereotypical, but true, cop line on the subject:

Other officers say arming everybody makes it harder for them to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

“And when you have multiple people potential pulling out guns, that’s gonna totally go against our training and potentially create a chaos that we may not be prepared to handle,” said a police officer in the audience.

That is a concern but in most cases it won’t be an issue. If the shooter has been stopped then the armed citizen will have holstered his weapon. Remember most mass shooters are cowards and end up offing themselves the second they are presented with armed resistance. And if the mass murder was still going at it when police arrived and the armed citizen was in a firefight with the said murderer I’m sure they would be good enough to not point the gun at the police or even holster the weapon when the cops arrived. Like I said it’s a valid concern but probably not one that is going to be an issue. The next commend was made by the Sheriff:

Sheriff White argued that armed civilians on campus have the potential to end the threat quickly. And he stunned the room with this assertion.

“In actual shootings, citizens do far better than law enforcement on hit potential,” said White. “They hit their targets and they don’t hit other people. I wish I could say the same for cops. We train more, they do better.”

I like this Sheriff, he’s smart and honest. On average armed citizens do have a better hit ratio. This may be due to the fact most civilians with carry licenses that carry practice shooting. Many police officers only shoot when they do their qualifying and as many times as their department requires. But this is entirely theory.

Either way it’s good to see an honest Sheriff talking about arming citizens in schools.