Author: Kevin

Quote of the Day – “Junk-on-the-Bunk” Edition

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Some time back, the Empress of Snark™ quipped:

It’s good to have goals. Mine is that, when they finally come after me for felony jaywalking or confuse my address with the crack house two blocks down, and in the aftermath spread all my stuff on bedsheets in the front yard, I want the kids on the intarw3bz gun boards to look at that junk-on-the-bunk display and say “Wow, that is an arsenal.”

But that’s not the QotD.

The latest news in the world is that George Zimmerman, the man who actually had to use a firearm in self-defense, and was found not guilty of murder by a jury of his peers after a modern-day media witch-hunt, is now in trouble on a domestic violence charge. The judge in the case demanded that Mr. Zimmerman surrender his firearms during the course of the legal proceedings.

Mediaite reports:

Following George Zimmerman’s recent arrest for alleged domestic abuse against girlfriend Samantha Scheibe, police conducted a search of the house where the couple had been staying that uncovered a large cache of weapons and ammunition.

What constitutes a “large cache” in the eyes of the Mediaite reporter?

Three handguns
One 12-gauge shotgun
One AR-15 rifle
106 rounds of ammunition, including two AR-15 magazines

Now, Mr. Zimmerman is only 30 years old, so he hasn’t had a lot of time to acquire much of a junk-on-the-bunk collection, but honestly – that’s pretty pathetic. I know there’s been a recent drought, but only two AR-15 magazines? Really?

I told you that so I could tell you this: Today’s Quote of the Day – the first comment to Popehat’s post on it is:

Jesus! That’s enough ammunition for the NYPD to shoot two people! — Ken White

Where would you like your internets delivered, Mr. White?

(h/t to SayUncle for the Popehat link.)

Central Arizona Blogshoot!

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No, we won’t be shooting blogs.

Or bloggers.

The date has been set for the (mumble, mumble, mumble…) annual Central Arizona Blogshoot:  Sunday, January 5, 2014, at the Elsy Pearson Public Shooting Range in Casa Grande, beginning at 0700 and running until we get tired and go home. 

Same as last year, the range opens at 7:00AM. There are no rangemasters. There are no chairs – bring something to sit on. The firing line is covered and there are concrete shooting benches, however.

And the city has porta-potties out there on a permanent basis, so we don’t have to rent our own (but bring your own TP just in case.)

The rules are pretty simple:


No explosives, no .50BMG rifles, clean up after yourself, don’t be a dick.

The rifle range is 300 yards deep with the first berm at 200.  The mountains that form the ultimate backstop are another 300 yards out and farther.  The ground there is reinforced concrete disguised as sun-baked clay. Forget about any target stand that needs to stick into the ground, it ain’t happenin’ short of bringing a sledghammer. Steel and targets that don’t need taping are best. And the benches are funky-shaped. Regular camping chairs are marginal, stools are better. I bring a folding chair, a target stand made of 2″ PVC pipe, and my steel swingers. I also have some .22 rimfire rated rolling targets made of steel.

The other other Kevin will be bringing an M1903, at least 2 AR’s, some pistols and a scattergun or two along with a clay flinger and some clays.  I haven’t decided exactly what I’ll be bringing, but my 1917 Enfield will definitely be coming.  I’d like to try some clays with it again.

I recommend you bring:  water or other non-alcoholic beverages (no alcohol on the range), sunscreen, ear and eye protection.  Ladies, don’t wear anything low-cut or open-necked.  Yes, I’m sure it looks lovely, but you don’t want to catch hot brass down in there.  OPTIONAL:  Something to shoot with, and something to shoot AT.  If you’re a reader or a non-gun blogger interested in coming to a off-the-cuff funshoot, please come on down!  I imagine most of us will be bringing multiple firearms and lots of ammo, but if you don’t, well, I’m willing to let people shoot my stuff (with my ammo), and I’m willing to let them shoot at my targets.

If you’re coming, please let us know in comments, or on the Facebook Event page.

So the Democrats Pushed the Button

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They detonated the “nuclear option” and, violating the rules of the Senate, violated the rules of the Senate.

Over at Quora.com someone asked the inevitable question:

The U.S. Senate Democrats have enacted the “Nuclear Option” for many judicial and executive branch nominations. What do you think of this?

My answer:

What do I think? 

I think what the Democrats thought in 2005:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXjYohzAOY?rel=0]
They were right then.  Fascinating that they’ve all changed their minds now.

They’re so certain they’re right, that Progressivism is the equivalent of salvation and any opposition to it is evil, they practice…

…politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the  human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for  it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various  socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion,  which our future historian calls “politicism”. In all its forms, it  defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on  characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control:  ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal  relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies.  To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral  justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be  afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.

It’s taken us two and a quarter centuries to get to this point, but the Republic is finally dead.  We’ve finally achieved “democracy,” which John Adams warned:

…while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy.  Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and  murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century

Welcome to the Twenty-First.  Fasten your seatbelts.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Bill Whittle – The Hammer of Reality

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGeWMPFlGlY?rel=0]

So, there’s just one question here: are these people really so incredibly dense, out of touch, incompetent and downright delusional to think that all this was going to work, or was it destined to fail from the beginning in order to destroy the private insurance market and leave us nothing but the single payer utopia that gives progressives a thrill up their legs?

Good question.

Thomas Sowell Calls Them “The Anointed”

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I ran across an interesting essay today.  Published at Bloomberg.com, it’s entitled Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Our Society Frays. Excerpt:

Complex human societies, including our own, are fragile. They are held together by an invisible web of mutual trust and social cooperation. This web can fray easily, resulting in a wave of political instability, internal conflict and, sometimes, outright social collapse.

Or, as the GeekWithA.45 put it some time back, “Entire societies can and have gone stark raving batshit fucking insane.”

How does growing economic inequality lead to political instability? Partly this correlation reflects a direct, causal connection. High inequality is corrosive of social cooperation and willingness to compromise, and waning cooperation means more discord and political infighting. Perhaps more important, economic inequality is also a symptom of deeper social changes, which have gone largely unnoticed.

Increasing inequality leads not only to the growth of top fortunes; it also results in greater numbers of wealth-holders. The “1 percent” becomes “2 percent.” Or even more. There are many more millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires today compared with 30 years ago, as a proportion of the population.

—

Rich Americans tend to be more politically active than the rest of the population. They support candidates who share their views and values; they sometimes run for office themselves. Yet the supply of political offices has stayed flat (there are still 100 senators and 435 representatives — the same numbers as in 1970). In technical terms, such a situation is known as “elite overproduction.”

Please read the whole essay, it’s not long.

The gist of it is what Thomas Sowell observed back when he wrote Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy.  (OK, one more quote from the piece):

A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions.

The “elite” and “elite-wannabes” are what Sowell refers to as “the Anointed.” They’re better than the rest of us because they went to the right schools and know the right people. As that quote from Sultan Knish in the header of this blog says, they 

…see themselves as the individuals who have been ‘liberated’ to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it’s because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it’s because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem.

Eric Hoffer observed about such people, they end up as government bureaucrats, bunny inspectors – overeducated mid-level functionaries angry at their lot in life and willing to take it out on the “great unwashed” public. And “Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.”  Listen to what he told Eric Sevareid:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOUXSPpN_eE?t=45&w=560&h=315]
The author of the piece doesn’t forecast systemic social collapse, but he does predict – well, one last excerpt:

We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s. And because complex societies are much more fragile than we assume, there is a chance of a catastrophic failure of some kind, with a default on U.S. government bonds being among the less frightening possibilities.

Isn’t that cheerful news.

And now you understand why gun and ammo sales have been astronomical for the last five years.  “Less frightening,” indeed.