Thoughts on the California Election

Two Parties, both lacking in dignity,
In fair California, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd candidates make their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their election continue their parties' strife.
The fearful passage of deceptive campaigns,
And the continuance of their parties' rage,
Which, but their candidates election, could nought refrain,
Is now the many word traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

(Originally the Prologue from Romeo and Juliet)

Table for Adding NRR Values

The Decibel scale is logarithmic so when using more than one kind of hearing protection, you cannot just add the NRR ratings together to arrive at the total. The table below can be used to find the combined NRR rating when two different methods are used.

+	NRR A
NRR B		19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33
	19	22	23	23	24	24	25	26	27	28	29	29	30	31	32	33
	20	23	23	24	24	25	25	26	27	28	29	30	30	31	32	33
	21	23	24	24	25	25	26	26	27	28	29	30	31	31	32	33
	22	24	24	25	25	26	26	27	27	28	29	30	31	32	32	33
	23	24	25	25	26	26	27	27	28	28	29	30	31	32	33	33
	24	25	25	26	26	27	27	28	28	29	29	30	31	32	33	34
	25	26	26	26	27	27	28	28	29	29	30	30	31	32	33	34
	26	27	27	27	27	28	28	29	29	30	30	31	31	32	33	34
	27	28	28	28	28	28	29	29	30	30	31	31	32	32	33	34
	28	29	29	29	29	29	29	30	30	31	31	32	32	33	33	34
	29	29	30	30	30	30	30	30	31	31	32	32	33	33	34	34
	30	30	30	31	31	31	31	31	31	32	32	33	33	34	34	35
	31	31	31	31	32	32	32	32	32	32	33	33	34	34	35	35
	32	32	32	32	32	33	33	33	33	33	33	34	34	35	35	36
	33	33	33	33	33	33	34	34	34	34	34	34	35	35	36	36

Even moderate pressure cartriges like the 45 ACP or 38 spl will generate 155 dB near the muzzle. High pressure cartridges like the 9MM, 40 S&W or 357 magnum will produce 160 dB to 165 dB. The report from a firearm is highly directional so the sound pressure level (SPL) you as the ooperator experience out of doors may be 10 Db to 15 Db less. However, in an indoor range, reflections will intensify the sound and lengthen the time your ears are exposed to damaging sounds levels.

Also the NRR is an average value measured over a range of frequencies. Depending on what frequencies dominiate the report from your particular gun, some ear plugs and/or muffs will be more efffective than others even if the NRR is the same.

Aaron Zelman Tells it Like it IS

The NAACP is Run by Hypocrites, Liars and Morons.

By Aaron Zelman, Founder and Director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

Copyright 2010 JPFO

(This is my personal opinion and does not necessarily represent every member of JPFO. I personally will not bow to, or take the poison of, political correctness.)

The leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has recently claimed that the Tea Party harbors racist factions. http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/19/2332666/naacp-releases-report-accusing.html - (archived article on JPFO).

It’s called playing “the race card” and the “anti-Semite card”, and you can bet it will surface more and more as elections grow closer. JPFO cannot endorse any political candidate or political party, but when a group like the NAACP (or any other entrenched special interest) uses its media access, or political correctness grandstanding to endanger the FOUNDATIONAL American civil right, the G-d given right to self defense, JPFO can and will step up. The NAACP is filled with liars.

The leadership of the NAACP continues to display a disgusting and dangerous level of blatant hypocrisy and deceit. The NAACP claims it stands for equality, but has, for decades, been at the forefront of policy and legislation that continues to make African Americans, as well as all other Americans, second class citizens. The NAACP also brims with hypocrites.

JPFO challenges any and all black leaders to have the intellectual and moral honesty to view our film “No Guns for Negroes” (see it free online at www.jpfo.org). JPFO challenges all black Americans to make themselves aware of the truly dangerous racists in your midst: anybody who wants to keep you disarmed and keep you on the government welfare plantation. Many of your brothers and sisters have been duped. Some are even back stabbers who are selling you out for personal gain and prestige.

Disarmed citizens are effectively slaves. Only armed citizens have the means to protect and preserve their freedom and safety. Only a moron could fail to see the connections between “gun control” and servitude. The NAACP must also be swarming with morons.

Now is the time for the honest and courageous black leaders of America to stand tall and confront the insidious liberal doublespeak. Where are the courageous and honest black leaders who understand where the far more serious dangers lie? It’s time for the NAACP to be cleaned out and become a legitimate “civil rights” organization … or close its doors. Kick out the Uncle Tom puppets of the liberal victim disarmament pushers. Wake up to reality. Your very lives may depend upon it.

The continued trampling of the Bill of Rights by the Obama administration and the NAACP, especially the right of self defense, has set back race relations in America by decades.

I ask all who read this personal opinion piece to pass it along to eighty million gun owners.

Psychological Screening of Gun Owners

In his latest Gun Rights Examiner column, David Codrea looks at this report in World News Australia.

Prospective gun owners would have to pass a mental health test before being granted a firearms licence[sic] under recommendations submitted by a NSW coroner.

This is one of those proposals that sounds reasonable at first. After all, does anyone want a "mentally ill" person to have a gun? In fact, does anyone want a mentally ill person to have a drivers license? For that matter, why would anyone want the mentally ill voting?

The abuse of "mental health" screening has a long and distinguished history. It was used by the Soviets to quell dissent by simply declaring that anyone who opposed the Communist Party was mentally ill then locking them up for reeducation. Institutional psychiatry was a willing and enthusiastic servant of the fascists in Italy and Spain. Hell, the Italian fascists invented Electo-Shock Therapy. The abuses of the label "mentally defective" was used by the National Socialists as a precursor to disposing of the labelee.

The average public school graduate may dismiss this as a Slippery Slope argument. However, the Slippery Slope is an informal fallacy only if the stated connections cannot be established. If the logic of the first step can be connected to the logic of the next then it is a legitimate argument. This makes it vital to reject any destructive principle with a demonstrated and logical identification with its worst implications.

The voice in my head tells me this is bad idea

Animal Graffiti

See it here

I especially like this one

I can only hope that some of the taggers here in the Southern California are inspired to climb into the White Rhino enclosure at the San Diego Zoo and spray paint their message on the hide of one of Creation's gentlest creatures. I hope they have a video camera to properly immortalize their efforts.

News at eleven. Video on You Tube.

If the prospect of spray painting an herbivore is too daunting then maybe they could try their art on one of these cuddly critters.

Do we really need more evidence than the no pressure video to know that the greeniots are out of touch with reality?

Duty to Retreat?

Expanded commentary on my reply to Should you have a legal duty to retreat from an intruder or attacker? by David Codrea

Current Pennsylvania law according to The Bulletin in Philadelphia, allows individuals

to use deadly force in self-defense if they are threatened with death, serious bodily harm, or kidnapping. They are also allowed to use deadly force to protect other individuals from the same risks.

Current law also requires an individual to retreat from the threat before using deadly force if the individual is in a public place

A proposed Castle Doctrine law, HB 40, being debated in Pennsylvania,

would remove that requirement, allowing an individual to use deadly force if the individual has a right to be in the place where he is attacked and if the individual has a reasonable suspicion the attacker intends to commit serious bodily harm.

The above sounds perfectly reasonable to me. The opponents of a sensible Castle Doctrine always try to make it look like an otherwise peaceable individual will whip out his "shooting iron" (or shooting tupperware) and gun down anyone with the temerity to cast a shadow on him. It's almost like these idiots learned about life by watching Bob Hope and Virginia Mayo in The Princess and the Pirate.

A goblin intending to harm me already has the advantage of surprise and advance planning. Even when the crime is one of opportunity, the attacker has made the decision to attack before I can make a decision to defend. This disparity already tilts the odds away from me -- the intended victim -- and towards the aggressor. Imposing a duty to retreat or a no brandishing requirement on self defense only adds to whatever advantage the bad guy already has. That is only a "sensible gun law" if the goal is to favor the criminal over his intended victims.

Open Letter to the US Postal Service.

Grant Cunningham of the The Revolver Liberation Alliance writes an open letter to the USPS telling them they are losing business by:

1. Not following US law with regard to shipping firearms. The law requires only the recipient have an FFL but the Post Office insists both sender and receiver have one.
2. Using archaic design criteria for their website. Apparently the site only works well with Internet Exporer and requires the user to download Adobe Reader to print a label.

The first bit of bureaucratic silliness cost me an extra $50 when I had to ship a rifle back to Browning from some minor work. I can see how that could add up quickly for a gunsmith who deals with customers all over the country. Even sending through UPS or Fedex is a hassle because I had to go to a Regional Center to send it instead of just dropping it off at a local shipping point.

Perhaps Congress needs to be reminded that the Commerce Clause was intended to facilitate commerce, not inhibit it.

I see the second in many web environments. I think it is a side effect of using IDE's that make it easy to plug in pre-written objects without any review of the underlying code. While it is true the Macintosh and most Linux distributions now have perfectly good tools to handle PDF files, Adobe Acrobat was the "standard" for a long time in Internet Years. The developers probably have some legacy code that relies on Acrobat being present and have never bothered to change it to match the changing web client environment.

Not too bright but, despite the appearance of being an independent corporation, the USPS is really an arm of the Federal Government. Change may make for a good campaign slogan but in the real world, governments change slowly and only with great resistance.

Tasteless, Terrorist Street Art

I don't know the context of this yet. I could be harmless.

H/T to Burn The Koran For Freedom and Urban Infidel

Edited to add:
Thank to USA2RKBA for the link to Fresh Stuff from Bunny Bin Laden. I guess whomever Bunny Bin Laden is he or she thinks this is funny. Like the hooker in Saigon who charged fifty cents for a blowjob, her taste was all in her mouth.

Holy Smoke!

The good folks over at BurnTheKoran link to an article on HillBuzz criticizing General David Petraeus out for his comments on Pastor Terry Jones' threat last month to burn a Koran as part of his September 11 observances. In one of the comments, someone named Aussie writes in part:

The Koran is seen as a 'holy book' and it should be respected as such.

It is never a good idea to hand an Armed, Godless Heathen a straight line like that.

In the interest of fairness I propose a test: I'll burn a Douay Bible, a King James Bible, a Book of Mormon and a Koran. My hypothesis predicts that:

1. Some Catholics will call me names.
2. Some Protestants will call me names.
3. Some Mormons will call me names.
4. Muslims will go ape shit and riot.

Any takers?

Why Police need HiCap Magazines

WeHo liquor store clerk narrowly escapes shooting after robbery

West Hollywood, California (October 3, 2010) - A Los Angeles Sheriff deputy responding to an armed robbery call this morning in West Hollywood fired eight shots at a man whom the deputy believed pointed a gun, missing him.

A Los Angeles Sheriff deputy responding to an armed robbery call this morning in West Hollywood fired eight shots at a man the deputy believed pointed a gun, missing him.

No one was hurt, detectives said, and all eight rounds hit a building across the street, breaking windows.

Only after firing the rounds did deputies discover that the robbery suspects had escaped and they had fired upon the store’s clerk.

The incident occurred at 1:15 am at a liquor store on the 8200 block of Santa Monica Boulevard (at Havenhurst Ave.).

According to Lt. Haselrig at West Hollywood Station, “there were shots fired outside,” the liquor store as a result of a successful armed robbery.

Lt. Alicia Ault told WeHo News that the eight rounds were fired when “a deputy responding to a call of an armed robbery encountered a man who he believed was pointing something at him.

“The deputy fired eight rounds and missed him,” said Lt. Ault. “Ultimately, deputies determined that the man the deputy fired upon was the store’s clerk who was pointing to them trying to get their attention.”

Read the rest here.

10/10 or Die!

Pajamas Media contributor Zombie report on a 10/10 video designed to promote the idea of reducing carbon emissions.

Global Warming murder fantasy nabs prize as most honest political ad of all time

Link to the video on YouTube (warning this is a NSFW graphic Video)

In case You Tube takes it down, try here

Link to the source file.

Time and Again

Cathy L.Z. Smith, whom I believe is L. Neil Smith's wife, has a new artice on Intellectual Property entitled Time—Going, Going, Gone. Go there and read it if you're interested.

The Intellectual-is-the-same-as-Real Property arguments have always struck me as kind of silly. Carrying Ms. Smith's argument to a logical conclusion would means the design for the 1911 was stolen from Browning (when the Government expired his patent) and all the clones makers are now profiting from that theft. Seems it would also mean that Smith and Wesson might not have not been able to make their first revolver since Colt owned that Intellectual Property. If so, since S&W owned the IP for the drilled through cylinder, the metallic cartridge might not have replaced the cap and ball.

I don't know offhand who owned (owns?) the IP for the metallic cartridge.

Even Ayn Rand recognized the need for an expiration date on IP. An expiration of IP happens because patents and copyright are not property as we normally think of property but represent a debt owed to the creator by people that copy the invention or book. However, debts are not eternal so patents and copyrights are limited.

I think I'll just leave the Smiths to arguing about angels and pinheads while I head to the range to use my pirated 1911 and immorally obtained S&W revolvers.

Arrrr Matey!

Gun freedom suit dismissed

As I expected, a lawsuit by gun rights advocates and states seeking freedom from federal gun laws for manufacture and sale completely within the state was dismissed.

HELENA, Mont. -- A federal judge in Missoula, Mont., has dismissed a lawsuit by gun rights advocates and states seeking freedom from federal gun laws, a move that the advocates promised to appeal.

The decision Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy was expected since his magistrate a month ago recommended tossing out the lawsuit because Congress has the authority to regulate firearms with its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

If this case even reaches the Supreme Court, I predict the court will side with expanded Federal power. See Gonzales v. Raich for a good summary of what passes for "reasoning" about Interstate Commerce on the current Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas, I think, summed the situation up well in his dissent

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

A few paragraphs later, Thomas wrote:

If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress’ Article I powers–as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause–have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to “appropria[te] state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce.”

Substitute "guns" for "marijuana" and you have exactly why the Federal Government will prevail. The Conservatives love the Drugged War and the Liberals love their War on Guns. Both require expanding the Federal Government beyond its Constitutional limits.

H/T to David Codrea