Author Archives: TMM

About TMM

TMM is the owner, editor, and principal author at The Minuteman, a competitive shooter, and staff member for Boomershoot. Even in his free time he’s merging his love and knowledge of computers and technology with his love of firearms. Many know his private name and information however due to the current political climate, many are distancing themselves due to the abandonment of Due Process.

Independence Day 2010

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This year we celebrate Independence Day on the heels of another win for gun rights. The historical road for this country is full of lessons that we should remember, cherish, and endeavor to never forget. Independence Day is a day devoted to one of the most monumental and important events in our history. This event is so important and monumental that previously nothing like it had ever been seen throughout the history of the world. This event is marked by one day with one particular document. On July 2, 1776 the Continental Congress voted on the Lee Resolution which actually declared the colonies to be free and independent states. It was then that the Continental Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, as the document to formally notify fat George we were no longer accepting his bull "crap".

If you have never read the entire Declaration of Independence I highly suggest you do. If you have read it, read it again, it’s never too early for another refresher.

The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

We must never forget the road that took us down this path. We must also remain ever vigilant to maintain freedom and liberty by watching for tyrants and stopping them from abusing our form of government for their own gain and acquisition of power.

Quote Of The Day, John Adams – 07042010

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Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, and measure in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations. –John Adams, June 9, 1776

On this day 234 years ago, one of the most memorable parts of that revolution occurred. Cherish the freedoms and liberties gained by those men who risked everything in creating that document.

-B

The Saga Continues

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Mayor Daley unveiled his new set of laws to infringe and deny a specifically enumerated right today. Let’s break down the bullets one by one.

The measure, which draws from ordinances around the country, would ban gun shops in Chicago and prohibit gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or garages, with a handgun.

How does one move the weapon to and from the firing range? Furthermore why can a homeowner not carry a firearm on his own property? How does one even bring the weapon home after purchase if it is not allowed outside the house? There may be exemptions in his ordinance, however knowing Daley and his previous history I doubt it. Also, with the lack of gun shops in the area, one will have a difficult time obtaining a weapon.

Limit the number of handguns residents can register to one per month and prohibit residents from having more than one handgun in operating order at any given time.

The one gun per month limit is totally arbitrary and without basis. If you limit people to one gun per month, why not one book per month or one vehicle per month? Limiting law abiding persons from buying something makes absolutely no sense. Criminals have already gotten a large supply of firearms into a city where they were previously totally outlawed; limiting purchases changes nothing for the criminals. Even more than that, what qualifies the weapon as having been disabled? Is it just simply removing the firing pin, fully disassembling the weapon, or permanently doing damage to the weapon? A homeowner should be able to have as many weapons as they desire at their disposal. They might want to keep one in their bed room and another hidden in their living room where they spend most of their time. What does the limit of one firearm do other than harm the law abiding because criminals ignore it anyway?

Require residents in homes with children to keep them in lock boxes or equipped with trigger locks.

So you can be killed while trying to get to your weapon in an emergency. Defensive weapons need to be kept at the ready. If you’re leaving your property, then yes properly store them, the same goes if you have small children. However there are other methods that can keep a weapon at the ready and out of the hands of a small child.

If you say BS and that is merely just endangering the child because they will get curious and do something stupid here is my personalized response. I grew up in a house with a rifle on the wall, I remember it distinctly and cannot think of a time I looked at the wall and didn’t see it there. I still have that rifle today and it is kept in my safe because I have a different ready rifle for serving the same purpose. The magazine was always loaded and a round in the chamber. My parents were never concerned because they raised me around firearms, taught me proper handling, and made sure that my curiosity was always satisfied in a proper and safe manner. Kids do stupid things because their parents attempt to hide and shield them from it. All this does is prevent the child from knowing, understanding, and learning proper and safe gun handling. Education is the best solution to any problem. If you disagree, look at sexual education. Abstinence only education obviously doesn’t work, a proper rounded education works. That includes touching the subject everyone would much rather avoid. Furthermore, it was that training and education that probably saved my life when I was at a friend’s house in 4th grade and he pulled out his dads rifle. After slapping the muzzle away he said, “Don’t worry it’s unloaded.” I asked, “How is anyone supposed to know that,” and then racked the bolt. At which point I left immediately and walked home. I never went over to his house again. Later in class he asked why I left, I told him, and low and behold during the conversation it was discovered he knew where dad’s rifle was, but not how to handle it. He was curious about it and thought I would be curious too. His lack of education from his parents, coupled with unsatisfied curiosity became the classic story book of disaster that is used by the gun control crowd to say we need to keep guns away from kids. How does prohibition of something stop curiosity? That’s right it doesn’t, that action actually makes it worse.

Require prospective gun owners to take a four-hour class and one-hour training at a gun range. They would have to leave the city for training because Chicago prohibits new gun ranges and limits the use of existing ranges to police officers. Those restrictions were similar to those in an ordinance passed in Washington, D.C., after the high court struck down its ban two years ago.

There is nothing wrong with training but the truth of this measure is to prevent people from getting licensed to have a firearm. If no new ranges can be built, and existing ranges are limited to police officers, where are prospective citizens to go to satisfy your bureaucracy? Oh that’s right out of the city costing them more money and time, and also requiring the probable precursor of private transportation. If you want this restriction, you need to provide the means for it to be readily obtainable. Saying you can have a firearm if you do X, Y, and Z and then outlaw W which is required by X isn’t really lifting the ban now is it? It is shielding the idea of the ban behind bureaucracy.

Prohibit people from owning a gun if they were convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Residents convicted of a gun offense would have to register with the police department.

Is there a method of having this right restored? This section is a sympathy token to make people against this law look bad. However most of those same prohibitions are actually already on the books. So why add them again? Instead enforce the laws you already have on the books. The more serious problem with this is that often the legal system is abused and people’s rights are affected unjustly.

Calls for the police department to maintain a registry of every handgun owner in the city, with the names and addresses to be made available to police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders.

No, no, and HELL NO. This is a presumption that all gun owners are going to be criminals. Canada has already discovered that their registration is a huge waste of resources and is totally unsuccessful. Even more than that though, this is the primary reason why the Jew’s in the Attic test was invented! All that does is provide a list of who to disarm prior to the roundup for the concentration camp. With what happened after Katrina, that idea requires a serious go to hell message to be sent. Daley would in no way shape or form miss an opportunity to abuse his citizens like the way New Orleans did.

Still, the mayor, whose office is trying to craft an ordinance that will withstand legal challenges, had to back off some provisions he’d hoped to include, including requiring gun owners to insure their weapons and restricting each resident to one handgun.

No he’s not. What he’s doing is crafting a piece of legislation which is still violating people’s rights and doing it in such a way that it will take years to get through the courts. Mayor Daley and crew receive no punishment when they pass a law that violates someone’s rights. They do it because they can and there are no repercussions to those involved. Someone needs to be charged and thrown in prison over that last piece of legislative crap as well as this one. It is a lack of accountability that is allowing these atrocities to continue. It’s high time we find a way to add serious accountability to those who pass illegal laws.

And the new games begin.

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Mayor Daley and his group of cronies have already started working on their new methods of victim disarmament after the McDonald ruling. Due to the ruling they can no longer maintain an outright ban so instead they have a new solution to their self constructed crisis.

“One handgun is sufficient for self-defense. We believe that a limitation on the number of handguns to one-per-person-per-residence would be consistent with Supreme Court” rulings overturning handgun bans in Chicago and Washington D.C., Georges told the City Council’s Police Committee.

What research was done to reach the conclusion that one firearm is sufficient? If you allow one firearm, why do you need to further restrict them? Reading further provides their warped answers.

“Limiting the number of handguns to one-per-person would reduce the number of handguns in circulation, reduce the ability of people to act as straw purchasers of handguns for others who are not entitled to possess handgun and reduce the number of handguns that would be available to children in the home.”

Oh, so they are just going to limit the rights of law abiding citizens to help enforce laws currently on the books? I fail to understand how laws stop someone who is intent on breaking the law from violating them. Just like a lock will not keep someone out who is intent on breaking into my house. But their heinous restrictions don’t stop at just one gun limitations.

A Chicago ban on gun dealers would be similarly motivated, Georges said. She noted that there are 45 dealers within 13 miles of the city’s limits and ten within one mile.

“Gun dealers have access to large quantities of guns. Gun stores, therefore, present a serious risk of guns flowing quickly into the community and into the hands of criminals through theft or through illegal trafficking,” Georges said.

Your new solution to outlawing guns becomes obvious; don’t outlaw the guns, just outlaw the dealers. If we can’t prevent someone from owning one, just prevent them from buying one. This follows along the same line that was used in the Heller decision regarding fully automatic weapons.

Accordingly, under Heller, Fincher’s possession of the guns is not protected by the Second Amendment. Machine guns are not in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes and therefore fall within the category of dangerous and unusual weapons that the government can prohibit for individual use. Furthermore, Fincher has not directly attacked the federal registration requirements on firearms, And we doubt that any such attack would succeed in light of Heller.

It is ironic that the legality of machine guns would be determined by common use because it is artificial regulation and control through the NFA and GCA of 1968 that prevents their common possession. Previously unconstitutional legislation created the conditions necessary to make it allowable under the constitution according to the court. However the law is not a fluid object subject to interpretation or changing political environments, it either is legal or it is not. There is no grey area. Just the same there is no gray area about whether a law is trampling someone’s rights or not. Also I feel that the phrase “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” to be quite clear and concise.

Lyle I think said it best:

Try this mind experiment, next time you see or think of someone or some activity that you hate, or that someone else hates.  Ask yourself; “who’s rights are they violating, or trying to violate?”  That’s a very clarifying and even liberating question.  If the answer is “no one’s” then move along.  Nothing to see there.  It’s time to dig in and start minding your own business, and hopefully you’ll have the freedom to mind your own business without someone trying to mind it for you.

More than playing outlawing games though, Daley and crew are not arguing facts, they are not arguing reality, they are arguing potentiality. Potentiality is not fact, it’s not reality, it hasn’t happened. Potentially Mayor Daley can run someone over with his car and flee the scene committing vehicular assault/homicide and hit and run; therefore his license should be suspended.

Ultimately anything is a potentiality, however statistics don’t lie and the potentialities they argue are some of the most outlandish around.

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Side-note:There is a serious issue with the picture in the news article.

Keep your booger finger off the trigger! Especially while loading. Yet another person unfamiliar with firearms handling them for the wonderfully unbiased media.

QotD: June-28-2010, Alan Andrews

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At this point there no easy landing.

Best case:

Social Security gone

Medicare gone

Reduce taxes and pray that the private sector can pull out of the dive in time.

That’s about as likely to happen as Obama skipping a golf game to do some work.

Alan Andrews – “Do you know anything?”

I cannot really add anything to that, but I absolutely LOVE that last line. -B

Can’t get much more Jack-Booted than this

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I stumbled across an article today detailing how an 86 year old disabled woman was abused and Tasered by her local police department. Personally I think each of those officers should be castrated and keelhauled. This behavior is completely disgraceful and just goes to further show how out of control government agents are. That TSA story is not the first story I have heard of incidents like that. My father-in-law is a below the knee amputee and has similar stories.

They have absolutely no respect because there is no accountability. They are protected and shielded from their abuses. If someone attempts to protect themselves from the abuse they further use their power to disrupt their life until their objective is achieved. I would like to note, they appear to overstep their bounds when victims are least likely to be able to properly defend themselves.

If they physically abuse someone who was having a possible medical emergency where does it stop?

Palouse Car Show – 2010

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I discovered late last week there was going to be a car show in Palouse yesterday. Being the amature photographer and absolutely loving classic cars I decided I would pay a visit. I took over 1000 pictures (literally) over the course of the day.

I spent all day today processing what I could and working on the photo gallery. While most would say just post all 1000 photos, thing is a lot of them are three shot brackets for HDR work. Also each weights about 10 megs a piece since they’re in raw format so I still have to process them to make them smaller and in a publicly useable format. If you had a vehicle at the car show, and you see a picture of it in the Gallery feel free to contact me. I would love to update the info with your exact year and model and put any other info you’d like.

Note all my work is under the creative commons license. Feel free to display it just attribute a photo credit to me, only conditions are no alterations and no commercial use. If you want to do either of those, contact me and we will work something out. I’m not a dick, but I did spend time doing all this work and commercial use dictates I should be compensated.

I did get a lot of really good photographs, I’m dropping a few of my favorites here as well. The family BBQ joint I frequent was where I discovered the car show. They informed me because well, they were catering it, and I often show up Saturday night.

Since the whole crew was there, I must provide a picture of TGC. She’s the real reason I like hanging out with Mike and Laurel. She provides hours of entertainment for a much lower price than TV service. Even the replays on Laurel’s iPhone the next day are awesome.

Overall the day was an absolute blast and it appears that everyone had fun. Doc Brown even showed up with his Delorean.

We even unexpectedly ran into other familiars like Lyle.

And here is one last parting image I was working on today. (Note I’m only though about the first 250 images.)

I will probably be going to the Clarkston car show end of this month, as well as Hot August Nights. If you’re going to be there and would like me to take pictures of your car, contact me. Time for a break!