May Victims of Communism Day
Today is the eighth 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 20th 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 omelette.
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 20th 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
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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, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 2003.
I intend to repeat this post each May 1 that I continue to run this blog. This is the sixth time I have put it up. Since Bernie Sanders made a credible run for the Presidency this year, obviously we’ve not learned a fucking thing from history.
Five years ago, Sipsey Street Irregulars had a post to go along with this one. It’s still up. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.
Boomershoot AAR
So, four days of driving for two days of shooting. Was it worth it?
Youbetcherassitwas.
This post will be pic heavy, so everything else is under the fold.
I left Tucson on Thursday a week ago at just after 5AM. I drove all the way to Brigham City, UT before stopping for the night, about 825 miles and 12 hours, expecting to leave the next morning early and getting to Orofino with enough time to get to the site and set up before field fire on Saturday. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Drove through some very pretty country, though.
If I hadn’t been in a hurry, I’d have stopped and taken more pictures. I got into Orofino late Friday afternoon, got some dinner and went to bed.
Saturday dawned wet. I made it out to the site and got my position set up:
That’s mine, the one with the silver top and blue sides. Much nicer than last time. Here’s the interior view looking downrange:
When Field Fire started, I dragged out the AR and did some shooting on steel at the 385 yard berm, but it became apparent that my folding table was WAY too low for shooting off the bench. Add to that the fact that my boots and socks were soaked through, the wind was blowing 10-15 miles per hour and the air temperature was about 50ºF, my feet were freezing. Despite that, the AR was kicking ass. A double swinger with 4″ square plates was no challenge at that range. Still, I needed to do something about the table height, so I left about 11:30 and headed back to town.
A clean, dry pair of socks on my feet and a couple of garbage bags between them and my sopping boots, and I headed for the nearest auto parts store for some wiper blades for the truck. Again, I wish I’d taken pictures. The auto parts store was also the local gun shop! Very cool. After the new blades were installed, I went to the local construction supply and got some 1″ schedule 40 PVC cut for leg extensions for my table. Back at the range, I found that the extensions were too long, but I found someone with a saw and got them cut down to fit. I had just enough time to get the .300 Win Mag out and put four rounds downrange before cease-fire was called to set up boomers on the 385 yard berm. The muzzle blast from my braked .300 did some interesting things to the water on the canopy, even with the muzzle a good 10″ outside.
Once they were ready to resume shooting, I got my spotter back and got dialed in for Sunday. Before leaving Tucson I’d sighted the rifle at 500 meters (547 yards), but with the air temperature, altitude and humidity changes I needed to sight in again. A steel torso target at 660 yards by my Leica laser rangefinder was my target. I fired three sighters, holding high and right to compensate for the range and wind:
After a quick scope adjustment, I held just high and right of the center black paint, a circle of about 6″. This is a two-shot group:
Yeah, that rifle/ammo combo shoots. I was ready for Sunday.
I’d signed up for the “high intensity” shoot, cleaning up the 385 yard berm at the end of the afternoon, but I was too wet and cold and wimped out. I headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
At dinner, I discovered that my spotter that day was our dinner speaker. The topic of his speech was “paying back” by taking people shooting and inspiring in them the kind of enthusiasm that makes us drive 20 hours to go shoot exploding targets. During dinner I met several people who thanked me for my work at this blog. That’s kind of humbling (and ego boosting, to be honest).
Brian informed me that he’d only be able to spot for me in the morning, Sunday as he was going to have to leave in the early afternoon, but I had another volunteer, so I was covered. I was back on the range in plenty of time to get set up and catch the opening fireball. The range was well prepared for us:
And the fireball was too:
Per the description, it was 26 gallons of gasoline and 44 pounds of Boomerite.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmqkprxGVxk?rel=0&showinfo=0]
Skip to 2:15 to catch the fireball without all the waiting. Pretty damned spectacular.
Then the shoot began. At the bottom of the hill right at 600 yards was a steel popper that David Whitewolf had put his father’s cowboy hat on:
My very first round of Boomershoot 2016 hit the target just below and to the right in that picture, and blew the hat right off that popper. I continued to shoot for the next hour or so, taking breaks to let the barrel cool, then switched off with my spotter to let him have some trigger time. He had never shot at anything past a couple hundred yards, and was going to try the 385 yard berm, but I was having none of that! “It’s sighted in for 650! Shoot at the targets on the hillside!” So he did. Before he finished, he took three of the highest targets out there at 700 yards. You should have seen the smile on his face. “Pay it forward” indeed!
I took a break for lunch about 11:00 and walked the firing line. Some people were much better prepared than I:
But there were some minimalists:
Turnout was pretty good:
After lunch David spotted for me for awhile as I worked through the rest of the .300WM ammo I brought. All in all, I fired about 150 rounds Sunday, and lost count of how many boomers I hit. I’m estimating about 24, with four or so failing to go off. Not bad, given the variable winds. We packed it in at about 4PM, and everybody tore down and put away. My arm ached a bit Sunday night, but no bruise!
I left Orofino Monday morning and headed for Ely, NV.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keYwki4PGeQ?rel=0&showinfo=0]
Snow. Who the hell ordered snow?
Tuesday morning dark and early I stepped out of my hotel room to see how much snow there was. A bit on the truck, but none on the ground:
Truck was NOT happy about starting, even though the temperature was only 37ºF. Need to check on that, but I got it going, and headed South. I stopped in Vegas for about an hour to tour Count’s Kustoms (Danny has some really nice cars!) and then headed on out. I got home about 4PM Tuesday. I took my suitcase into the house, but left everything else for Wednesday, which I had also taken off.
Four days of driving, 2,750 miles and two tires for a day and a half of shooting. Never even put a round through The Power Tool™. But I had a great time.
Chains of Command
I just finished Marko Kloos‘ latest novel, Chains of Command. EXCELLENT book. He just keeps getting better. If you’ve not been reading his Frontlines series, I strongly recommend them. Near-future military Sci-Fi written by someone who knows military life and can write it well.
Write faster, Marko.
Homeward Bound
I left the Konkolville Hotel at 5:50 this morning, drove into Orofino, checked the tire pressure (*wink*), and then headed South.
Just South of Twin Falls, what did I run into? This:
I drove through this crap for 100 miles, then finally it switched back to rain.
Until I got near Ely, NV. It’s doing this:
When I checked in at the hotel, I asked what the weather forecast was. It’s supposed to snow until 11PM. The temperature currently is 34ºF and it’s going to get colder. Who was it that thought going home through Ely was a good idea? And what the hell happened to Global Warming?
UPDATE: 8:30PM and it’s not snowing. And warmer. Whew!
When Even VOX Recognizes a Problem…
This piece has been making the rounds, “The smug style in American liberalism” by Emmett Rensin. There’s too much to quote and I recommend you read the whole thing, but I was struck by this passage:
A movement once fleshed out in union halls and little magazines shifted into universities and major press, from the center of the country to its cities and elite enclaves. Minority voters remained, but bereft of the material and social capital required to dominate elite decision-making, they were largely excluded from an agenda driven by the new Democratic core: the educated, the coastal, and the professional.
A few years ago I pulled a passage from a book, John Ringo’s The Road to Damascus that I’d like to repeat here:
(The party) is composed of two tiers. The lower tier produces many outspoken members who make their demands known to the upper tier. The lower tier is derived from the inner-city population that serves as the base of the party. The lower tier’s members are generally educated in public school systems and if they aspire to advanced training, they are educated in facilities provided by the state. This wing constitutes the majority of (the party’s) membership, but contributes little or nothing to party theory or platform. It votes the party line and is rewarded with cash payments, subsidized housing, subsidized education, and occasional preferential employment in government positions. The lower tier provides only a handful of clearly token individuals allowed to serve in high offices.
The upper tier, which includes most of the party’s management, virtually all the appointed and elected government officials, and all of the party’s decision-makers, is drawn exclusively from suburban areas where wealth is a fundamental criterion for admittance as a resident. These party members are generally educated at private schools and attend private colleges. They are not affected by food-rationing schemes, income caps or taxation laws, as the legislation drafted and passed by members of their social group inevitably contains loopholes that effectively shelter their income and render them immune from unpleasant statues that restrict the lives of lower-tier party members and all nonparty citizens.
(The party) leadership recognizes that in return for supporting a seemingly populist agenda, they can obtain all the votes they require to remain in power. Even the most cursory analysis of their actions and attitudes, however, indicates that they are not populists but, in fact, are strong antipopulists who actively despise their voting base. This….is proven by their efforts to reduce public educational systems to a level most grade-school children (in other countries) have surpassed, with the excuse that this curriculum is all that the students can handle. They have made the inner-city population base totally dependent on the government, which they control.
Well, one more:
The smug style arose to answer these questions. It provided an answer so simple and so emotionally satisfying that its success was perhaps inevitable: the theory that conservatism, and particularly the kind embraced by those out there in the country, was not a political ideology at all.
The trouble is that stupid hicks don’t know what’s good for them. They’re getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that’ve made them so wrong. They don’t know any better.
From the masthead of this blog, the quote from Sultan Knish:
The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes 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.
Self-realization from the Left? Too little, too late. I bet the piece gets memory-holed.
Two is One and One is None
And apparently two is none, if you don’t check adequately first.
So as reported I’ve been on my way to Boomershoot. I departed from my hotel in Brigham City at 07:00 local time (06:00 Pacific Standard Time), and Google Maps, being a bi%$h, routed me through the tiny Idaho burg of Weiser (pronounced Weezer). Just outside of Weiser, this happened:
I’d had (I thought) all the tires checked for proper inflation on Wednesday before I left, but apparently I hit some road debris and that was that. No warning until the tire just let go. So, off on the shoulder I jack up the truck and pull the bad one off, then I drop the (supposed) spare from under the bed:
FML. At least I had cell service. I called State Farm for roadside assistance. Took half an hour to get them to figure out where I was and dispatch a tow truck. Text message said they’d be about 90 minutes out. Wonderful.
Then a local Sheriff’s deputy pulled in behind me, scoped out the situation, and offered to take me and my tire back into Weiser to the closest tire shop. I cancelled the tow, and off we went. Two hours, two tires and $470 later, the new spare is the old driver’s side rear, and I have a new set of Cooper tires on the back axle:
Finally got into Orofino about 5:45 Pacific time, but I’m ready for Boomershoot now!
Iowahawk is a National Treasure
Tam says it best:
Apparently the Nazi Anime Fan wing of the internet has its jimmies thoroughly rustled by the fact that the genocidal founder of the Democrat party has been replaced on the Twenty by a gun-toting African-American Republican woman. And the Pinko Identity Politics wing of the internet doesn’t even realize that’s what just happened.
This is like sipping a martini made out of hippie and Nazi tears, shaken AND stirred.
And this is the BEST suggestion for the $20 bill I’ve EVER seen:
Trigger warning! TRIGGER WARNING!!
Boomershoot Update
Made my last pre-Boomershoot trip to the range this morning. Seems during my previous testing with the .300 Win Mag I managed to shoot my scope loose. Red Loctite applied, torqued to spec, and I’m now dialed in at 500 meters. Took the target AR and ran a magazine through it at 400 meters. It’s ready to go. Still need to load some .260 Remington for the Power Tool™. I’ll have to sight that in on Saturday. I think I’m going to use it on the 385 yard berm only, though. Last time I scared a lot of targets with the pistol at 640 yards, but I think I only hit one.
I have someone sharing Position 26 with me now, so I’ve got a spotter and so does he. I head out for Orofino on Thursday. I’m planning to stop in Ogden, UT Thursday night, which should put me in Orofino on Friday afternoon. I’m doing Field Fire and High Intensity on Saturday, and then the event itself on Sunday, departing Monday morning for the drive home. Haven’t picked a route back yet.
I’ve got a 5’x7′ canopy and some tarp sidewalls to keep the wind and (probably) rain as much at bay as possible, and a half-inch plywood sheet for a ground surface to put my chair and table on. Weather report says cool and probably rainy Saturday, cooler and maybe rainy Sunday. Thankfully the wind is supposed to be 10 mph or less.
The Politics of Envy
Bill’s been busy!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QngiBX6whG0?rel=0&showinfo=0]