Month: October 2009

The Anti-Gunner’s New Texas Weapon

Well it appears as though the anti-gunners have been handed a new weapon. I say that in a rather snarky manner as it’s really a new weapon handed to everybody online, at least in the state of Texas. Texas’s H.B. 2003 law took effect September 1, 2009 and the first arrest under this law has occurred:

The new Texas law criminalizes online harassment on social networking sites and through e-mail or text messaging. H.B. 2003 states a person commits a third degree felony if the person posts one or more messages on a social networking site with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten another person.

You read that right if you post more than one “harmful, fraudulent, or intimidating” (quotes are donating idiocy not direct quoting) post on a social networking site you are a felon under Texas law.

Why do I say it’s the anti-gunner’s new weapon? Because they are usually whiney assholes who would use such laws as are most people who base arguments on emotions instead of facts. Remember according to anti-gunners just mentioning the word gun can be threatening to them. Anyways if you’re in Texas just beware of this law before you post anything on any social networking site.

Further Research

H.B. 2003 as Passed in Texas [PDF]

England Does it Again

Says Uncle points out yet another example of England hating everybody’s rights equally. It’s not secret that it’s all but impossible to own a gun in Britain. Well Phillip Luty hosts a webpage called The Home Gunsmith that gives instructions on how to build your own firearms. Even with Britain’s draconian gun laws you would think this site would at least fall under the freedom of speech. Well not in Britain where you’re a subject not a citizen and hence have no rights:

On 22nd May 2009 the Homegunsmith (Philip A. Luty) was, for the fifth time in ten years, attacked by an armed police unit and violently arrested at gunpoint.

In their latest onslaught against freedom of speech, press, personal expression, and dissemination of ideas, the henchmen of the State charged the Homegunsmith with “criminal offences”—namely “Making a record of information likely to be of assistance to terrorists.” (Part of the all-encompassing 2000 Terrorism Act.) That’s right folks, writing books or articles on one of man’s oldest occupations—gunmaking—is now tantamount to an act of terrorism in modern day Britain.

The Homegunsmith.com website has been strategically closed whilst wounds are licked and the troops regrouped.

—Ken Holder
Keeper of the Web Pages

Yup Mr. Luty was arrested yet again for his web page. I can’t believe with all these stories of government abuse people hold them up as an example of what our country should be. There is a reason we broke away from those guys.

The Danger of Gun Registration

I hear a lot of anti-gunners say there is no harm in gun registration. In fact there is, the government knows what you have. Because they know what you have they may decide to go door knocking and search your inventory. Don’t think it can happen? Days of our Trailers will prove otherwise. There are reports of Maryland police questioning citizens about their guns. Remember in Maryland you have to register semi-automatic military pattern rifles and handguns firearm. From the article:

According to the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore (AGC) has received several verified reports of the Maryland State Police questioning citizens about the firearms they legally own.

These incidents involve citizens and firearms that have no apparent connection to any crime, or any illegal activity.

Yup no real reason behind these inquires, they apparently just feel like doing it.

Mexico Still Screaming for United States to Disarm

Fuck I really hate the current president of Mexico. He’s got a huge problem with the drug cartels and his logical choice of action is to blame the United States. I know what you’re thinking this is old news and I’m several months behind on my reporting. Nope bad news from Says Uncle the president of Mexico and a couple former ambassadors are at it again. They say:

The Binational Task Force on the United States-Mexico Border listed the assault weapons ban as a step the U.S. should take immediately to improve security in both countries. The 10-year ban expired in 2004.

Really? BOTH countries? What benefit will it provide us in the form of security? Looking at the FBI murder weapon rates the number of murders in 2008 with firearms is only 99 people higher than 2004. But the number of people killed with rifles (as so-called assault weapons fall under) is actually 28 people lower in 2008.

If these “assault weapons” were so dangerous and a threat to security the number of rifle murders since 2004, when the ban lifted, should be noticeably higher. In fact since 2004 the number of murders committed with firearms in general has been pretty stable.

Further why would the drug cartels come here to get semi-automatic rifle when they can go to Mexico’s neighbors to get fully-automatic rifles for CHEAPER? That makes no logical sense. If the president of Mexico wants to unfuck his nation he’s going to root out corruption there, not attempt to restrict the rights of another country.

ClickToFlash Safari Plugin

Once in a while I like to post useful or interesting tools I find scattered throughout the Internet. Well I will openly admit I hate Adobe Flash. It’s a massive resource hog that generally does nothing useful but certainly gums up a web page. But every so often (YouTube) it’s useful.

On Firefox I deal with such things via NoScript. But most of the time I’m using Safari and I haven’t found a nice lightweight tool to accomplish the same thing. Happily I can say I found such a plugin called ClickToFlash. It’s simple, instead of Flash code loading on a webpage you get a little box that says “Flash” in it. If you want to play it you click on the box and the Flash loads. You can whitelist sites, like YouTube, so all the Flash content will load without you haven’t to do anything for that single site.

Anyways it’s useful, small, and single purpose which are the type of tools I like.

Because our Government has Nothing Important to Do

You know I just love the random and weird stories I find on Dvorak Uncensored. But sometimes they depress me. Because there is an apparent lack of actual issues to deal with Representative Anna Eshoo from, wait for it, California has introduced the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (the acronym is CALM, very clever Mrs. Eschoo).

What does it do? Well it would require the FCC to enforce a rule that television commercials can’t be “unreasonably” loud. Yup while our country is in an economic depression, our money is becoming worthless, we’re at war with several nations, we have government striving for more control over the health care industry, and the PATROIT Act is still in force somebody decided to waste time with the volume of television commercials. You’r tax money at work.

Google Chrome on the Mac

So I tried Google Chrome yet again on my Mac. For those of you not in the loop Chrome is still in development on Steve Job’s platform. Either way it was pretty nice, certainly faster than Safari and didn’t beach ball of death me for minutes at a time. The problem though? Well it has two helper processes that soak up 100% of this MacBook Pro’s processor. Honestly it was completely unnoticeable so the processes must be at a pretty low priority but once I was running on the battery and my little power indicator went from it’s usual 5.5 hours to 2.5 I figured something was up.

Yup it certainly isn’t ready for average users quite yet but is getting closer. Most of the features are there minus a few things like certificate management and plug-in support.

Mandatory Services Equal Money

Walls of the City points out a little fact involving supply and demand. Apparently some federally licensed gun dealers are all for abolishing private sales between individuals (the anti-gun lobby coins this the “gun show loophole” even those it has nothing to do with gun shows or loopholes). Why would an FFL holder do such a thing? Aren’t they in the fight for the second amendment?

Well think about the service they provide. Think about it. If you haven’t come to the answer yet hit the link and read the post.

Us Second Amendment Supporters Sure are a Fickle Bunch

You know when it comes to groups I think us second amendment supporters can certainly take a title for one of the most fickle groups out there. We argue amongst ourselves at the drop of the hat. For instance there are long running battles in our group about what’s better the AR-15 or AK-47? what caliber is better for self defense the 9mm or the .45, and of course does open carrying help or hinder our movement?

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining, I love arguments. Arguments are how things get decided and I’m proud to say I’m part of a movement that is willing to argue about topics in detail. The other side of the coin are those who use simple talking points and always agree with one another. Those people don’t get anything good accomplished because they never take other sides into consideration.

Well this weeks argument seems to be about open carrying. Rob Allen is all for it, Sebastian isn’t a fan, and Uncle is all for it but doesn’t believe it promotes the second amendment to others. Of course I’m nowhere near these three as far as the popularity of my blog (or lack thereof) but that’s never stopped me from chiming in when an good argument is afoot.

Let’s face it most peoples’ exposure to firearms is in a negative sense. For the average Joe the only time they are exposed to another individual carrying a gun outside of a range is when the gun is in their face during a mugging or robbery or when they are interacting with a police officer (and if you’re dealing with their gun it’s probably not a good thing either).

Due to this the default reaction of most people is negative when they see another person carrying a gun. If a majority of peoples’ exposure to other carrying firearms was positive I believe this default reaction would change. That’s also why I don’t believe open carrying alone is going to do anything, you need to do it well.

What I mean by that if you are open carrying as a method to change peoples’ minds be polite as possible, dress well, and besides the gun look as harmless as possible. If somebody approaches you and decided to confront you on your choice to carry a gun don’t get in their face. Explain in a calm and collected manner why you chose to carry a gun. Scream, “BECAUSE IT’S MY RIGHT!” isn’t going to accomplish anything. On the other hand explain how you carry a gun to protect yourself and your family will give the confronter nothing they want and hence they will most likely move on.

If you’re walking around carrying a gun openly make eye contact and politely nod to anybody you pass by. Say, “Hello” or “How are you doing?” Just be a nice person. If you want people to become accustom to firearms their exposure must be positive. That’s the key.