Gun Blogger Rendezvous X

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls!  There WILL be a Tenth Annual Gun Blogger Rendezvous!  Originally conceived and executed by Mr. Completely, this year the helm is being run by multi-year sponsor LuckyGunner.com.  One other change, the date has been moved up slightly to August 20-23.  The venue remains the very nice Silver Legacy Hotel and Casino in Reno, Nevada.  All the details for early registration are available here.

The tentative schedule so far:

Thursday, August 20: The rendezvous kicks off with a welcome dinner at The Silver Legacy Hotel & Casino. Early arrivals will allow time to stock up on ammo, get a lay of the land in Reno, and check out some of the local gun culture.

Friday, August 21: Breakfast followed by a day of long range rifle and pistol shooting at the Washoe County Shooting Facility. After the range we'll head back to the Silver Legacy for dinner and to hear about some of the new products hitting the shelves.

Saturday, August 22: Breakfast followed by an introduction to International Steel Shooting Association Action Pistol shooting at the Washoe County Shooting facility. Expect a lot of time to hit the range Saturday! That night, we'll reconvene at the Silver Legacy for dinner, our prize giveaways and the raffle.

Sunday, August 23: Breakfast at the Silver Legacy followed by a trip to U.S. Firearms Academy where we'll have a chance to check out Reno Guns, Battleborn Firearms and experience a digital scenario shooting.

And of course, every evening the Hospitality Room will be open for bloggers and readers and other interested types to gather and talk.

I've attended all nine of the previous Rendezvous' and enjoyed every one. If you're a gun blogger or a reader and have any interest in meeting some of the people you interact with on the web every day, plus get to throw a lot of lead downrange, I urge you to come to the tenth iteration of this event! If you're unfamiliar, just click this link for my complete coverage of previous events.

UPDATE:  And if you're a blogger, there's an added incentive to go.

Bill Whittle's Latest: Progressivism's Empire of Lies

Missed this one when it came out.

Quote of the Day: Tam Edition

If government is competent at one thing, it's incompetence.

Can't do it any better than that.

Yes she can:

Whoever wrote that article knows what the windows on the short bus taste like.

Eulogy

Here's the eulogy I gave for my Mom at her memorial service Saturday:

Too Little, Too Late?

An interesting op-ed piece on CNN.com was brought to my attention by way of Facebook.

Read 'Lord of the Flies' comes to Baltimore.

Then read my June, 2004 piece "(I)t's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can."

May Victims of Communism Day

Today is the seventh annual Victims of Communism Day, a day to remember the people murdered by their own governments in their quest to achieve a "worker's paradise" where everyone is equal, where "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" is the beautiful dream lie.  R.J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, has calculated that the total number of victims of Communism - that is, the domestic victims of their own governments - in the USSR, China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cambodia is 98.4 million people.  For all Communist governments during the 20^th Century, he puts the estimate at approximately 110 million.  And this wasn't in warfare against other nations, this was what these governments did to their own people - "breaking eggs" to make their utopian omlette.

Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, and another six million people the Nazis decided were "undesirable" went with them.  "Never again" is the motto of the modern Jew, and many others just as dedicated.  But "again and again and again" seems to be the rebuke of history.

The Communists are hardly alone in these crimes.  Rummel estimates that the total number of people murdered by their own governments during the 20^th Century is on the close order of 262 million, but the single biggest chunk of that truly frightening number is directly due to one pernicious idea:  That we can make people better.

Why do I own guns?  For a number of reasons, but one of them is this:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?  --  Alexandr Solzhenitzyn, The Gulag Archipelago

--

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once. -- Judge Alex Kozinski, dissenting, Silveira v. Lockyer, denial to re-hear en banc, 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, 2003.

I intend to repeat this post each May 1 that I continue to run this blog.  This is the fifth time I have put it up.

Four years ago, Sipsey Street Irregulars had a post to go along with this one.  It's still up.  STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

And Now for Something Completely Different: Gun Pr0n!

Since this is supposed to be a gun blog (albeit lately it hasn't been much of a blog at all), I thought I'd change tack and, you know, post something gun related.

Last week my dad asked me to take a couple of guns that he no longer had need for and that I didn't want, and see what I could get for them.  So I took them to my favorite Merchant O'Death and was very pleasantly surprised at what the shop was willing to give me for them.  While I was there, MOD once again brought me a couple of things out of the "Special" display case, trying to tempt me. This is usually a very bad thing for my wallet. The first thing he showed me was a 6" 3-screw Smith Model 29, a Dirty Harry special - beautifully blued, no lock, hammer-mounted firing pin, in very good condition.  I haven't succumbed to .44 addiction yet, so I was able to resist temptation.

However, when he pulled this one out of the case, I couldn't help myself:


That's an old Clark Custom IPSC Open class Bullseye gun probably from the early late 80's 90's.  (See first comment.)  It would be equally good as a bowling pin gun.  Check this thing out:




Note the Remington 1100 cocking handle in place of the rear iron sight:


And the hand-done stippling on the frontstrap and the Allen screws on the front of the dust cover for adjusting fit of the slide to the frame:


From the wear & tear on the scope mount, this gun has obviously seen a LOT of use:


The first thing I looked at when he handed it to me was the price tag. Let's just say it was WELL under $1k.

It followed me home.  Soon as I get a chance, I'm going to see how it shoots.

Thank You All

I appreciate the notes of sympathy and condolence my last post (and the associated FB post) have drawn.  Thanks to all of you.  It's really appreciated.

She's Gone

Blogging will be even more sparse than usual.  Mom passed away this evening.  She was at home, and passed quietly.  Her last two surviving siblings had traveled from Virginia to see her. They got there in time.

Take care, Mom.  We'll miss you.

Bill Whittle's Latest

I've been remiss. This one's been up a while.


I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad.

Quote of the Day - Brad Torgerson Edition

"Flaming rage nozzles of tolerance."If you haven't been following the Sad Puppies assault to wrest control of Science Fiction's Hugo award away from the tiny Leftist clique that has been running it for the last decade or so, this won't mean much to you, but Brad's piece really is more widely directed than at just this one battleground.

More Global Climate Change

I'm in Burlington, Vermont this week.  This is the view out my window at just after 6PM local time today:


Yes, it's April 8^th.

Flying in to Burlington on Monday, we passed over Lake Champlain where I noticed that it seemed at least 90% covered in ice.  From the Burlington Free Press, February 17:

For the second year in a row, the lake appears to be frozen from one side to the other. National Weather Service high resolution satellite images show ice pretty much everywhere on the lake.

That's enough for meteorologists to declare the lake as "closed" or frozen over, said Peter Banacos, a meteorologist at the NWS office in South Burlington.

Burlington has had below freezing temperatures throughout February, he said. This weekend Vermonters experienced wind chills as low as minus 40, which likely consummated the freeze-over.

The lake froze completely in 2014, but this is the first time in a decade that the lake has closed two years a row. Vermonters last saw the lake completely freeze consecutively in 2004 and 2005.

The instructor of the class I'm taking here went down to the lake last night. He reported the ice is still "about a foot thick."

Atmospheric CO₂ is now at 401PPM.

Current sunspot activity is low and declining.

I know where my money is riding on this question.

Your Moment of Zen

Haven't done one of these in a while:

Absolutely Correct

Seen at Facebook, reposted here.  Click for full-size, and read the text.  Spot.  On.

Some Days...

...I wonder why I left the air-conditioned comfort of my beige cloth-covered box in the Consulting Engineering Corporation building.

Oh yeah, meetings & reports.  That was it.

They're starting to look more attractive....

The Criminal Arrogance of Hillary Clinton

Bill's latest Firewall:



I also strongly recommend his latest essay, American Deserter.

Just, Damn.

Traveling

The week of April 6-10 I'm going to be in Burlington, VT.  I've already dropped Jeff Soyer an email, but if any readers live in that area, I'd be interested in meeting up with you.  My email's over there on the left sidebar.

Freedom of from Religion

Still playing over at Quora.com.  Here's a recent question:

Why, despite its clear violation of the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, is there still "In God we trust" on US currency and in courtrooms?

The Free exercise Clause:
'GOVERNMENT shall make no law respecting any organization of religion or prohibit the free exercise there of.'

AND The CONGRESS ACTION THAT WAS PASSED UNCONSTITUTIONALLY AND IN BLATANT VIOLATION OF OUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS:!!!

As a result, the 84th Congress passed a joint resolution "declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States." The law was signed by President Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, and the motto was progressively added to paper money over a period from 1957 to 1966.

Federal endorsement of a deity or religion violates THE US CONSTITUTION.
So, in light of this should be removed asap.

I replied:

You are aware that from the founding of the nation the Senate and the House of Representatives have each had, at government expense, a chaplain? And one of the duties of that chaplain is to open each session of each legislative body with a prayer?

Are you familiar with the "Original Public Understanding" theory of Constitutional law? I suggest you look it up. Your understanding of the First Amendment is flawed.

A reader took exception:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

No Kevin, ACTUALLY having a chaplain say a prayer in a secular government body is also severly unconstitutional you history oblivious fool.
My understanding of the first Amendment is based entirely on the words contained within it cûlt boy.
You are competely entitled to your opinions which are not supported by evidence.
But the moment you spread that opinion as fact you are a liar.
And if you spread it as fact knowing well it is an opinion you are both a liar and a fraud.

Government shall make no law respecting any organization of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.

Can you read?
It isn't a bible you can just be an apologist for later and say is metaphor Ya non- reasoning dolt it's an INALIENABLE RIGHT-not subject to your falsifiable and cûlt deluded opinion.

Well! As Randall Munroe observed:  I can't go to bed, someone is wrong on the internet! So of course I had to respond:

Well, so much for Be Nice, Be Respectful. 

Apparently you're under the impression that I belong to a "cûlt."  I assume from this (having had some experience in this arena) that you mean I'm religious, probably some form of Christian.  However, I assure you I am an atheist, but apparently not of the same sect as you.  My beliefs are obviously heretical to yours, thus your need to verbally burn me at the stake for denying your TRUTH.

So your understanding of the First Amendment is based entirely on the words contained in it?  How nice.  You're not a lawyer, then?  Well, neither am I, but I've studied American Constitutional law on my own for about the last twenty years.  I've read enough court decisions to make one's eyes bleed, and I've read the non-judicial statements of judges and Justices in great stacks. 

And you propose to stand here and tell me that you would argue to James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," that the First Amendment prohibits the offices of Chaplain of the House and the Senate, and he'd agree with you?

Sorry.  Not buying.  Not even close. 

The law is NEVER based exclusively on the text.  That invites "reinterpretation" over time - the so-called "living Constitution" theory.  Let me throw some quotes out to you:

"Our Revolution commenced on more  favorable ground. It presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts. Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position. We had never been permitted to exercise self-government. When forced to assume it, we were novices in its science. Its principles and forms had entered little into our former education. We established however some, although not all its important principles. The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press." -- Thomas Jefferson pp.46 - 47, The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, presenter.

--

"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322 Paul K. Sadover

--

"It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.... If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield." - George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

--

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government." - James Madison

--

"The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now." — South Carolina v. US, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)

And finally, Antonin Scalia:

"It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution.

"What 'we the people' want most of all is someone who will agree with us as to what the evolving constitution says.

"We are free at last, free at last.  There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands.

"What in the world is a ‘moderate interpretation’ of the text?  Halfway between what it really says and what you want it to say?" - Antonin Scalia, excerpts from a speech quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, 3/10/04

I've engaged on several occasions with what I like to term the acolytes of Dawkins - the radical anti-theists who hate all religion, but most especially Christianity - and the place at which we clash most often is with respect to Constitutional law.  They seem to feel that judges in black robes sitting at benches can unilaterally dispense TRUTH upon the masses - in short, that the Court system acts as the clergy of the Church of State, solely responsible for the well-being of our - for lack of a better word - souls.

Columnist George Will gave a speech a few years ago that hit upon this.  Let me quote:

"Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from nature, from human nature and the natural rights with which we are endowed that pre-exist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the nineteenth century discovery (or so they thought) that History is a proper noun with a capital 'H,' that history has a mind and life of its own, he argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it is the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature, and the changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that in his view dispensed rights.

"Heraclitus famously said 'You cannot step into the same river twice,' meaning that the river would change. The modern progressive believes that you can't step into the same river twice because you change constantly. Well those of us of the Madisonian persuasion believe that  we take our bearings from a certain constancy. Not from, well to coin a phrase 'the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.'

"That has become, that phrase from Justice Brennan, has become the standard by which the constitution is turned into a 'living document.' A constitution that no longer can constitute. A constitution has, as Justice Scalia said, an anti-evolution purpose. The very virtue of a constitution is that it is not changeable. It exists to prevent change, to embed certain rights so that they cannot easily be taken away.

"Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to annihilate, regulate or attenuate or dilute those others. Madison said the rights we are owed are those that are necessary for the individual pursuit of happiness. Wilson and the progressives said the rights you deserve are those that will deliver material happiness to you and spare you the strain and terror of striving.

"The result of this is now clear. We see in the rampant indebtedness of our country and the European countries what someone has called 'a gluttonous feast on the flesh of the future.' We see the infantilization of publics that become inert and passive, waiting for the state to take care of them."

So no, cûlt-girl, the mere words of the text are not all that matters, no matter how strongly you believe.

Curios to see if he/she/it responds further.

UPDATE:  Yup:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

Religions are all cults by design definition- Just large ones. INFACT that's what a religion is technically- when a cult gets too big to contain by authorities it gets relabeled as a religion- Pickup a dictionary or look at how any religion forms. What is it that you think these organizations provide to make such huge dividends? Needless fear.
Not to burst your bubble- but this has nothing to do with me you and my perceived ego- it has to do with accuracy and honesty and a blatantly disregarded HUMAN RIGHT.
I could care less what you delude- about your percieved sect of atheism- right there you show yo don't know what atheism is but at least you figured out part of the truth.
I didn't have a bad experience with cults- I have to read, participate and basically evangelize about a deity being trusted everyday- understand how that is unconstitutional?

My response:

No, I don't.  We're discussing Constitutional law as it applies to religion here in the U.S.  Your argument is that the government cannot even mention anything religious, but from the founding of the nation we've opened sessions of Congress with state-paid clergymen offering prayer to a Big Invisible Friend.

Your argument is invalid.  The "original public understanding" of the First Amendment's defense of freedom of religion is not equal to your conception that it protects a freedom from religion.

You live in a society where a significant majority believe in a god or gods.  The First Amendment protects their belief.

So suck it up, buttercup.  Grow a thicker skin.  If your atheism is so delicate that it cannot withstand evangelization and must be protected from same by government force, then I suggest it isn't all that solid to begin with.

UPDATE II:  The conversation is also going on in the comments to the original question.

UPDATE III:  Original comment thread DELETED.  Why am I not surprised?  Here's the rest of the exchange:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

Government shall make no law respecting any establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.
That answers what I think.
Endorsement of monotheism on legal tender is without QUESTION UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Why do you think we have a free exercise clause? So cults and non-reasoning illiterates as an ignore it? Surely not.

To which I replied:

And, once again, where do you get your oddly worded version of the First Amendment? I assure you it does not use the word "organization." The word used is "establishment," oh great Constitutional Textualist. Do some research on the "Establishment Clause" in Constitutional law.

The premise of your argument is flawed. All other error flows from there.

Her return volley:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

There fixed it. Thanks- but you are dead wrong about the rest.
Monotheism establishes a singular God. Be honest would you- that is establishing MONOTHEISM excluding all else; hence a direct violation brainiac.
Monotheism is established as being only one God worshipping. That isn't religious establishment to you? It is to everyone who doesn't have schizophrenia and even a smidgen of science literacy.

And the reply that, I think, caused her to delete her initial comment:

So we've established that you, self-proclaimed Constitutional Textualist, cannot accurately quote the particular Constitutional clause you're basing your position on, that you accuse ME of being a "history oblivious fool," (though you've now deleted said comment), you accused me of belonging to a cult - sorry, "cûlt," for not agreeing with you, and now you're banging your MONOTHEISM! gong.

But we were discussing LAW. As I pointed out, what the law meant when it was adopted is what the law means NOW, unless and until that law is CHANGED through legislation - NOT by the proclamation of some robed priest sitting at the judicial bench handing down Truth.

Is "In God We Trust" unconstitutional? I very much doubt it, given the HISTORICAL FACT that both houses of Congress have government-paid clergy on staff, and have had since the inception of those legislatures. The law DID NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS when it was adopted. It doesn't mean that now. I'm sorry that this historical FACT harshes your mellow, but there it remains.

You want to change that? Lobby and get new legislation passed. Don't go looking for the solution in the courts.

Corrupts and Attracts the Corrupt

As seen on Facebook:


The Other Party™ is Phillips head.

Then there's Torx, Allen...

RACIST!™

Yup.


Via Instapundit.