Images of the Antis: Guns and Cars

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Weerd Beard

Man, this shit again?

OK First up, no need to repeat what Lawdog has said before. The guns and cars argument is nothing but another bad-faith argument the antis are making. They don’t want guns treated like cars AT ALL! They just want to enact certain laws, and use cars only where it fits and nowhere else. Let’s face it, antis don’t want the same laws for cars applied to guns. Not only that, they don’t want gun laws applied to cars. You may have gotten a DUI back when you were in college, but the state gave you your license back, and the whole time you still owned your car, and you could have bought a new one whenever you wanted. Not if we regulate cars like guns, you’ll never OWN a car for the rest of your life, and the car you were driving when you were over the limit is now being auctioned off by the PD, or crushed and sold as scrap!

There are certain features that were born from racing technology. Disk breaks, forced induction, lightweight materials, steering-wheel mounted controls. Sorry, you want that fancy new BMW? Sorry that’s a “Race Car” by arbitrary government decisions, and you can get one ONLY if it’s a pre-86 M3 that will only set you back $500,000!

Want to drive across state lines to visit friends? Sorry, no reciprocity, you’ll be spending some time in prison if you drive through certain states. Don’t worry, your rights aren’t being infringed! You can take the bus!

Ever wonder what that fist fight you got into years ago has to do with your driving? Well NOTHING, but as a convicted felon you will NEVER be able to drive ever again, nor own a car, nor ride in somebody else’s car!

The list could go on for that side, feel free to ad on in the comments!

Next up Lt. Col Bateman (remember that traitor?) is making a very solid false equivalency. He’s talking about the training (which frankly doesn’t exist in all states. Sure you need a bunch of training to get your learner’s permit, but that’s not a REQUIREMENT to get a DL, really you only need to be of a certain age and pass the written and road test and you’re all set. Still this is to drive on PUBLIC roads. To own a car, or drive on private property you need no licensing at all.

Of course the Mommies are demanding action….but what are they calling for? Seems they mostly are calling for Universal Background checks, and private businesses to ban (or at least make a request) carry in their establishments.

What does this have to do with anything? Why nothing, of course!

Posted in Freedom, Guns, Safety, Self Defense | 8 Comments

Start Your Monday Off Right!

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Weerd Beard

The latest Episode of The Gunblog Variety Cast is up!

Now just a quick Double-Plug, I generally don’t self-promote, but I’m exceptional proud of this week’s segment.

I wanted to talk about I 594 in Washington, which I am really taking a stand against. I decided the best way to handle this issue was to Ask if Barron would rather lump his Tech segment into mine since he an expert on this bill, and fought hard to keep it from becoming law, and is still fighting now.

I’ll just say, this law is coming to a state near you, and Bloomberg is targeting states we generally consider “Gun Friendly”, so if you haven’t listened to our podcast yet, make this your first, it’s only an hour out of your day!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted in Guns, Podcast, Politics | Leave a comment

“Gun Death” Defense

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Weerd Beard

This one will be doubly ignored!

Cleveland police say a woman fatally stabbed a 47-year-old man after he allegedly forced his way into a home.

…Police said in statement that the man knocked on the door of the home in an attempt to visit someone who lived there. He was denied entry and forced himself inside, where he and the woman who answered the door got into a physical altercation. Officers say the woman then stabbed the man at some point.

No word if booze or drugs were involved, but I bet booze and drugs were involved. Now of course this story will be ignored by the antis because it wasn’t a “Gun Death”, but further even when somebody shoots a home invader, that’s ignored as well, or at least only lumped into raw “Gun Death” numbers.

“Gun Death” is focused on because they want to ban guns. Self Defense is ignored because they want to ban guns. Then they pretend this has ANYTHING to do with public safety.

H/T Miguel and
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Posted in Gun Death?, Self Defense | 1 Comment

Taxes for Thee, Not Me!

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Weerd Beard

It’s always amusing to see “Progressives” talk about taxes. They LOVE them and want there to be more. A radio host once said “Democrats treat taxes like teenage boys treat sex!” in other words will cross the realm of ridiculous in order to get them.

Yet when it comes to their own books….

A New York Times investigation into the finances of MSNBC host and Washington heavyweight Al Sharpton has found “$4.5 million in current state and federal tax liens against him and his for-profit businesses,” according to the story by Russ Buettner. Titled “Questions About Sharpton’s Finances Accompany His Rise in Influence,” the story documents a long trail of unmet obligations and a messy web of financial interests spanning nonprofits, personal finances and beyond.

“Mr. Sharpton has regularly sidestepped the sorts of obligations most people see as inevitable, like taxes, rent and other bills,” claims the piece. Even with his tax liabilities, notes the story, Sharpton “traveled first class and collected a sizable salary.”

Also what springs to mind is John Kerry’s Boat:

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family’s new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to the cash-strapped Bay State.

If the “Isabel” were kept at the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee’s summer vacation home on Nantucket, or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes.

Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something of a nautical tax haven.

Even this article isn’t 100% correct, the yacht soon was moored off Martha’s Vineyard, and it turned out that the Rhode Island registration on the hull was really the boat’s only tie to that state. Essentially the equivalent to me putting Maine plates on my car. He was found out, and allegedly paid the taxes…but he would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those pesky kids!

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Posted in Politics | 2 Comments

Organic Free-Range Deer

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Weerd Beard

Now this is a very interesting story:

A decades-long national decline in the number of hunters has prompted states to tap into a new group of hunters – people who demand locally produced food, but don’t know the first thing about bagging a deer.

Books and blogs on the topic are numerous, and state wildlife departments are offering introductory deer hunting classes in urban areas to recruit newbies who want to kill their own local, sustainable and wild meat in what some say is an ecologically friendly way.

“It’s not easy and it’s not a surefire way to fill a freezer every year but it’s certainly more rewarding than even raising a cow behind your house and butchering it,” said Chris Saunders, hunter education coordinator for the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife. The department offered an introductory deer hunting course in Burlington this fall to recruit new hunters.

Well that’s one way to think about it. This is also very promising!

But hunting participation increased by 9 percent from 2006 to 2011, the latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s national five-year survey found, and wildlife officials around the country suspect that it’s local food connoisseurs – or locavores – partly helping to level it off.

Reasons for hunting vary – recreation, spending time with friends and family, finding a trophy buck. The number of those hunting for meat nearly doubled from 16 percent in 2006 to 35 percent in 2011, according to a national survey of 1,000 hunters published last year by Responsive Management and other outdoors agencies. The survey found that part of the increase was driven by the locavore movement.

Now I’m a shooter, not a hunter. Still I love the outdoors, I love game meat, I understand the value of population control, and I’ve found shooting at targets that move under their own power to be VERY challenging. That goes double when I’m concerned about cleanly taking the target without undo suffering, or difficult recovery of the meat.

Still I remember somebody did the breakdown of the cost of his freezer of deer meat one hunting season, only taking into account the expenses that were only good for THAT hunting season, and let me tell you that venison was approaching Wagyu beef in per-pound cost. I like deer, but frankly I’d take the beef if you asked me what I wanted for dinner.

Still you can’t get an animal more “Organic” or “Free Range” than an animal that was out in the woods just before slaughter, and for some there is a certain dollar amount attached to that.

I point out my own interests in hunting because I see this increase as being a side-effect of Gun Culture 2.0. Let’s face it, owning a gun for personal protection is smart, responsible, and safe…but it’s also boring as hell. I carry a gun CONSTANTLY but yet I’ve never had to clear leather when the timer was for real. Chances are I may never. So that’s why people who have invested in shooting often take up other pastimes in the shooting world. Be it collecting (I have my Soviet and Warsaw Pact collection, as well as my mouse guns that I never bought for carry), shooting, Competition, and HUNTING. Also this shows a bit of the popularity of the AR-pattern as a hunting platform. You may have bought that black rifle for protection of your home and family, but what else can you use it for?

Also interesting in a nation where urban sprawl and increased regulation hunting can still be on the rise.

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Posted in Biology, Food, Freedom, Guns | Leave a comment

“Gun Death” Grandmother

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Weerd Beard

God, another horrible one!

, 63, who had been babysitting the boys in Killearn Lakes Plantation, Fla., then took 6-year-old Mason into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, a probable cause affidavit said. Mason’s brother, age 8, heard him start to cry from behind the door and say, “I don’t want to die, please don’t kill me.”

The boy said he tried to get in the bathroom, but could not. He then called his father and hid, court documents said.

Within five minutes, first responders were on the scene and found Mason lying on the bathroom floor with multiple stab wounds to the chest, said Lt. James McQuaig, Leon County Sheriff’s Office spokesman. Leon County Emergency Medical Services rushed him to the hospital, but Mason did not survive.

WTF??? Not only was this the Grandmother of these two boys, but she was entrusted to watch them, not some estranged relative who was out for revenge or something. What a horrific way to kill somebody, and horrific for his brother.

The only thing I can find for a motive is the Grandmother was mixing booze and pills at the time, but man, does that even make this make any sense to you?

Why are we so focused on “Gun Death”?

H/T Wallphone

Posted in Gun Death? | Leave a comment

A Part of Me is Sad to See This Go

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Weerd Beard

It was pretty silly:

WESTMINSTER, Mass. (AP) – A proposal that would have made the town the first in the nation to ban all tobacco sales has gone up in smoke.

Westminster’s board of health voted 2-1 to drop the proposal at its regular meeting on Wednesday, a week after rowdy opposition led board members to end a public hearing early.

Board members Ed Simoncini and Peter Munro voted to kill the proposal. Board chairwoman Andrea Crete voted to keep it under consideration.

The board had initially said the ban would help keep a variety of tobacco products from young people, but businesses strongly opposed it.

First up, a “Tobacco-Free Town” won’t do crap. There are Dry Towns all over the country, including Massachusetts, and it does little but inconvenience the drinkers. Hell I’m sipping a Martini right now, and not a drop of this fine beverage was purchased in Massachusetts. There’s a liquor store right up the street, but the prices are high enough that I generally just swing by and buy my booze in New Hampshire whenever I get the chance. A -Free town just means the people will travel to the next town over to buy their smokes.

Of course I get a little aggravated that they include e-cigarettes in their “Tobacco Products” list. One is a little more semantic, in that there is NOTHING in an e-cig that comes from a tobacco field. The more serious concern comes from the nanny-staters crusade against e-cigs, and their attempts to consider them exactly the same as conventional tobacco products. I’ve lost a BUNCH of relatives to cigarette smoking, have and had many who’s lives were harmed from side-effects of tobacco use. I also know lots of people who currently smoke and know that if they don’t quit their health too is at serious risk. Because of that, I see the e-cigarette as one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century because it has the best modes of nicotine replacement and virtually no known side effects. Now some negative health effects may be discovered, but certainly it can be said that whatever negative effects that can be found will be SIGNIFICANTLY less than inhaling lungfulls of smoke.

The idea this would stop kids from smoking is laughable. It is illegal for kids to smoke. It is illegal for kids to buy smokes. It is illegal to furnish tobacco products or nicotine to minors.

Oh and it’s illegal to use recreational drugs. How do kids get their pot or coke? They have it smuggled in illegally and buy it. Substitute tobacco and you have the futility of this argument.

Now for the amusing part. This town was trying to ban tobacco products in a state where it is not a criminal offense to smoke marijuana, and marijuana can be prescribed as “Medicine”.

That is some full-blown “Progressive Logic” right there!

Either way, it’s dead, and I’m fine with that!

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Posted in Biology, Freedom, Politics | 1 Comment

The Democrats Again Lie on the Obamacare Numbers

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Weerd Beard

Obamacare is such a disaster:

The bill was rammed through with the promise that more people would have health insurance (and that was a “Right”…well health care IS a right, it’s not like prisoners on death row don’t have access to the infirmary, or people are turned away at emergency rooms, or ambulances are just driving past people with cardiac arrest, forcing two parties to engage in a monetary agreement under penalty of law *which I will note ALWAYS can devolve to a government agent shooting a person who refuses to comply* is NOT a right, and as a matter of fact is the antithesis of rights) and that health insurance would be better and cheaper.

Of course the first thing that happened was people with “Bad” insurance (first private holders, but soon employee plans will face the axe) had their policies cancelled. Because healthcare.gov was such a shit show, even people who WANTED a new plan couldn’t get one. The people who did replace their plans got plans that covered more things, but cost a ton more, and often with deductibles that were so high, you might as well not have insurance at all, or one of those “Bad” Catastrophic plans.

Also these numbers are being fudged because more people are WITHOUT health insurance because of the law. You know, that thing it was supposed to “Fix”.

It just makes me mad.

Posted in Biology, Freedom, Politics, Safety | 1 Comment

Gun Gripes Takes on I 594

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Weerd Beard

It’s a terrible law, and it’s coming to a state near you.

The time to fight is NOW!

Posted in Freedom, Guns, Politics | Leave a comment

Climate is not Weather

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Weerd Beard

Hank is part of the “Climate Change Cult”, every time he talks about climate he takes on fatalistic and grim tone. Now this video:

Yeah that cold summer we had was the “Hottest Ever”, according to NASA…who is on record for faking data.

This isn’t such a sinister cabal that is faking weather for some New World Order goal. I saw the same data manipulation when I worked for NMFS as a fisheries observer. The fleet would have a record catch of one fish speices, or would go to great lengths to avoid catching certain fish because of amazingly low quotas set, while the papers stated that these fish were in declining populations.

The motivation for these inconsistencies is not some horrible conspiracy, but from pressures from the .gov who funds them. NMFS is paid to REGULATE the fishing industry. If regulations become effective then the need to study interactions between the fisheries and population becomes less urgent. Rather than needing huge teams of scientists collecting and analyzing huge quantities of data, all that is needed is a small group keeping a close eye for changes on what has become a stable system.

Still who declares the efforts to be a success? Well the very large and expensive teams studying the fishery!

Let’s take a comical break for a second:

In Office Space Tom’s job is essentially superfluous, and the efficiency experts of Bob and Bob are honing in on him. Tom doesn’t resign to the fact that he can’t justify his salary, instead he embellishes to comical levels.

It’s funny to see him squirm, but we also have some sympathy for him. He’s old, stupid, and doesn’t have many skills. Unemployment might be VERY painful for him (the movie plays this out), and really he hasn’t done anything WRONG, he’s simply done the job the incompetent management have given him, and of course as things are playing out the Management is safe, while he is on the chopping block.

The same can be said for these scientists, they are simply refusing to write their own death warrant, and by fudging data they can keep their comfortable jobs. There is of course some morality at place here, but in modern “Progressive” America morality has become subjective. Putting fishermen out of business protecting a fishery that their compliance has helped saved is morally better than putting scientists who have outlived their usefulness out of business. I mean SCIENTISTS! They’re educated, they’re smart, they do SCIENCE! While fishermen tend to be less educated and are killing ANIMALS, granted for people who will continue to eat them…

Same with NASA, they keep getting to launch new missions and form new teams to expose the specter of “Climate Change”, and point out how it’s all our fault, because that’s what they are paid to do. Climate has NEVER been stable in the world’s history, but that natural fluctuation has little impact on politics. Now if this natural change can be pinned on industry or human lifestyles…well REGULATION!

It’s all one big mess, and it really is the FURTHEST thing from science. Rather than observed events leading to a hypothesis that can later be proven or disproved by research, we have uneducated (at least in science) people choosing a useful hypothesis, and then demanding science ONLY prove that hypothesis correct, or they will lose funding. It doesn’t take a scientist to predict the next event.

You don’t see this in private industry. Drug companies make money from creating drugs that meet a need. While there are certainly companies that have overstated a drugs effect, and understated the side-effects, those ventures on the free market have been disastrous. The best way to make money as a drug company is to make the best drug possible, and in the end there is just no way to fudge that.

Same goes with any private industry. You make a car that sucks, people won’t buy it. You make computer software or hardware that sucks people won’t buy it.

It only becomes ugly when people aren’t buying the end product but the “Science” itself. The .gov will ONLY buy “Science” if it proves what they WANT to prove, and that is why the quotes get placed around “science”.

Posted in Biology, Politics | 2 Comments