Now a couple observations, this is their current absolute wish list. This thing is so over the top to “garner compromise”. They shall receive none from me. Write, call, and show up. Seriously folks, you all can most certainly write. If you’re unsure what to write, Robb has a wonderful starting point.
Don’t just do this yourselves, get EVERYONE else you can to do it too. Do not just go quietly into the night, make your voice heard. Make them realize the beast that they want to tangle with. Make them understand that there will be no compromise from us on this subject. Know someone who just bought a new AR in the panic, get them to write in! I’ve heard many people lately bitch about it but not a one of them has bothered to write in and complain.
Do not just sit on the side lines and expect this to turn out for the best. If you want to see the future, create it! There is no doubt that the NRA stepped in it last week, but as Sebastian said:
The NRA, like it or not, is the most effective and biggest legislative lobbyist we have on our side. Honestly they are the only one’s that we can effectively use against our enemy. If you doubt their ability, why do you think our opponents are so enthralled with attacking and attempting to discredit the NRA and its members? The one thing that bugs me more than anything though are the people who bitch about the direction of the organization but they do not get active themselves. As I have said already, “If you want to see the future, make it.” That does not happen by sitting on your ass and complaining on your blog or to your friends. It happens by going out and getting active, at least at the local level. Do you think the NRA would ignore a large section of it’s membership if that section actually stood up and said something? No, but that section has sat quite for so long they forget they’re there.
If you sit around and do not even bother to lift a finger in this fight and we loose, you have no one to blame but yourself.
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.
So my wife got me a t-shirt for my birthday today. I would say it’s fitting:
Joss Whedon’s Serenity Browncoat/I Aim To Misbehave Men’s T-Shirt, Large
For those of you who may not understand, I give you this:
I spent last night in conversation with my mom regarding the current state of affairs and the political fallout from the actions of a mad man that shall not be named.* I find the shirt fitting because I’m not going to run, I am not going to cower, I am going to stand and fight against the coming onslaught.
I am going to fight against those who would disarm the law abiding, I will fight those who think that one more law would magically stop a mad man, I will fight against those who think that the appearance of a weapon is some how related to its effectiveness, I am going to fight against those who use the tragedy and misfortune of innocent children and families to further their own political agenda. Ultimately I am fighting against those who would disarm the victims to ensure they are incapable of mounting the most effective response and defense.
Ultimately in the words of Malcolm Renyolds, “I aim to misbehave.” Because my stepping up to the plate is exactly what our opponents would say is misbehavior. They would rather I just shut up and sit in the corner so they could then use my silence as an indication that I feel guilty for the actions of another.
No. I aim to misbehave. I aim to act and pursue this in ways they couldn’t imagine. I aim to help the big dogs in this fight to take control of the conversation and pummel our opponents into the ground. I aim to make this their last stand. I aim to put them into the dust bin of history next to the KKK.
Me thinks I’m going to have to watch Serenity when I get home tonight.
*Seriously, if you put his name in the comments I will perma-ban you, I will not aid in giving these people fame for their atrocities.
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.
[On my way home tonight I stopped by to chat with Chris and see how things were doing at my local gun shop. Here’s how it looked as I walked in:
I walked in as the last AR on the shelf was being bought. The few remaining that look like they are are really just dedicated .22 LR. The one sole carbine on the right is a 9mm carbine which was also liberated by the same individual who bought the last AR. Notice how there are no Glock mags, AR mags, or just about any other standard capacity magazine. Yeah the last of the P-Mags were leaving as I arrived. They moved, in the middle of no where mind you, in a store that’s mainly known as a golf shop, over 50 rifles in the past 4 days they were open for business.
So here’s what it looked like as I left from the purchase of a single individual:
To give you an idea of how serious this rush is, he was asked if he had any SCARs or other high end rifles and was offered cash for purchase. Think about that for a second folks, people were arriving cash money in hand to buy these.
I don’t think our opponents have fully realized what they have done. I can guarantee you that those who have bought rifles over the past weekend aren’t planning on turning them in if they’re outlawed. I went through all the pistols he had left. Most were single stack or revolvers. Every other normal capacity Glock, S&W, and XD was gone.
People are seriously afraid and I cannot say that the fear is ungrounded. But as piece of good news I do think that Sebastian is right in this following statement:
There’s no question though folks, this is going to be a fight. Do not underestimate the power of our enemy, especially with emotions on their side. Do not get cocky, do not think that magically we are just going to win this. It is going to take work and effort. Write or otherwise contact your legislators starting immediately. If you’re not sure what to do, follow this write up from Robb. Sadly again unlike our paid competitors I have to work for a living and I will be busy through the weekend. My goal is to sit down Sunday afternoon or take the day off Monday and write up an improved form letter based off of Robb’s. At the same time I’m going to work on creating a simple way to automate the whole process of contacting the necessary people.
I offered my help to Chris on arming customers on the political front and got him hooked with with Sebastian’s primer. My goal is to arm every last customer with the knowledge necessary to help win this fight.
Now is the time to fight. To those that argue for a ban on assault weapons I say, “Molon Labe!” –B]
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.
So already I’ve seen comments and even got an email from a friend about a particular comment that was left, below is what the comment said (emphasis mine, spelling his).
We all here want to feel safe and do what we can to protect our families & loved ones: we are parents to our children, wives to our husbands, true friends to our friends. More than this we are neighbors and members of our community, in church, club, workplace and park.
I honor the Bill Of Rights and welcome the freedom the Second Ammendment gives me. I also recognize that this was written 221 years ago against the backdrop of our emerging nation. At this sad time and remembering past atrocities I will now seek a complete ban on assault rifles – I will continue to proudly keep and carry my little Ruger. While I dont know many of you here I know that you are no different to my own neighbors; good people living in difficult times. We all need to do the right thing and show leadership.
Here’s the thing folks, you either have a right to arms or you don’t. There is no negotiating on this, we did that in 1994 and look what happened. Further the current atrocity pulling at everyone’s heart strings happened within a state with an assault weapons ban!
If the ban didn’t stop him there what makes you think it would somehow work in the future? Please inform me how “just one more law” would have altered the course of events given the litany of laws he broke before he even started shooting children. Explain to me how the law-abiding gun owners are at fault and the sacrifice of their rights will somehow make the world a safer place. Even law-makers admit that an assault weapons ban wouldn’t have changed anything, you must know something the rest of us don’t.
But lets destroy your BS regarding 221 years ago shall we? At the time people owned cannon, artillery, and during the American Revolution the Kentucky Long Rifle was the AR-15 of the era. Read that again, the Kentucky Long Rifle was the AR-15 of the era. It was a military arm that was quite excellent at striking targets at long distances. By todays standard our bolt-action rifles could be compared with muskets. Muskets, lacking rifling, were less accurate but quicker to reload. So there’s a trade-off yes, overall the technology was quite similar, however there was a considerable difference between the two.
Lets move forward not even 100 years to the civil war and the advent of the henry repeating rifle as well as the percussion-cap revolver. Both of which greatly increased the available firepower of a single individual, yet by your argument we should have nothing more than what we had 221 years ago when it was written. So no revolvers, no repeating rifles, this destroys cartridge firearms, thus kiss your bolt-action rifles and shotguns good-bye seeing as they couldn’t have conceived of this 221 years ago.
Because they couldn’t conceive of the advances in technology 221 years ago, because they didn’t see the immediate benefit of the printing press, you argue for a complete ban on an inanimate object, that you don’t use, thinking that will somehow stop evil. You are however more than happy to continue carrying your “little Ruger” which, by your argument, should be outlawed since we should only take into account what they had at the time.
So if you want to carry a defensive pistol and you want to carry on this argument, you will carry nothing more than a single shot flint-lock pistol. For you see, you should only ever need one round! If you need more than one, obviously you need to practice your aim more! No one needs a 10 shot magazine, the size of the Ruger LCP, or even a six shot revolver, for our fore-fathers survived on 1 shot flint locks and that is what they had in mind when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, at least that’s what you claim. You cannot have it both ways, you cannot just embrace technology you like and throw away that you dislike.
Our opponents would be happy to take away every semi-automatic pistol, who needs them right? You can carry a revolver, it has six rounds, more than enough for anything you might encounter! Then one day someone goes on a spree, reloading while the response takes 20 minutes and you hear cries that we need blanket revolver ban. It’s a slippery slope my friend and the first assault weapons ban proved that along with another important fact.
Now you could say I’m over stepping and taking this too far to which I would reply, how do you set the bar then? George Washington didn’t cross the Delaware to get to his duck blind and by god the Second Amendment was not written with the aspect of hunting in mind. No, at the time the American public maintained it’s own supply of military arms and while some would say that is no longer necessary, I would point out that to this day the United States has an unorganized militia that can be called upon to defend her. As well as the fact that our government has committed atrocities against her own people and you wish to give that same government a sole monopoly on force. Merely ensuring that her own citizens cannot resist if they feel it necessary to do so.
Lastly your argument for an assault weapons ban also completely ignores the fact that the majority of the features banned are purely cosmetic and safety related. Tell me, what good does it do to ban a collapsible stock? You know that thing that allows you to adjust the length of pull for different sized shooters. That thing you adjust to make sure the shooter doesn’t get scoped, or otherwise suffer injury. The pistol grip, which is quite beneficial for disabled shooters allowing for a more natural grip angle and thus preventing further damage to the wrist because of recoil. Also my personal favorite, banning a barrel shroud. Really!? Banning an object who’s sole purpose is to prevent the user from burning themselves. That’s like banning suppressors, because we all like hearing damage!
Your statement above is nothing but pure hypocrisy no matter how you cut it. You either support the individual right of self-defense, including their right to choose what they think is the best arm for them, or you don’t. You cannot just say, well I don’t like evil black rifles so their bad but leave my pistols alone. What happens to the disabled woman who cannot easily deploy a pistol but can a rifle? Must she be stuck with a bolt-action rifle that she cannot effectively operate the bolt on? Ok, so you’ve left semi-auto rifles now with the necessary features to aid in ease of use. Now are you going to limit her to 10 rounds? That operator as I said lacks normal dexterity so while you can quickly and easily reload a magazine you’ve still limited the disabled shooter. And for what? It’s not like the magazine bans really matter to a determined individual:
Remember it was 20 minutes for the police to respond, so short of banning metallic cartridges, people can reload guns, again and again, using them for evil. The answer is to step up and stop evil when it appears, that is best done by allowing people to retain the best tools for doing so. That is not done by banning the otherwise law-abiding and turning them into felons overnight. I find it ironic though that you claim we should do the right thing and show leadership and you do so by blindly following the talking heads. The right thing is stepping up and doing what needs to be done, even if it seems difficult. The right thing is protecting the rights of others despite the actions of a lone mad man. By the way sir, you lead from the front, not from the rear as you kiss the boots of your future masters begging forgiveness for something that wasn’t your fault.
In the words of Samuel Adams:
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
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.
When I was mugged I blamed only 2 people. My attacker and myself. I can’t control him, so I looked at myself to figure out what I could do to put myself in a better position for survival should the element I couldn’t control decided to come after me again. I took responsibility. I didn’t blame the cops or the grocery store parking lot or even my parents. They had some influence as did society, but it was me who stood there and did nothing. It was me. I did not come after you or anyone else. I didn’t go to congress and ask for new laws to protect my lack of action. I took action. Law abiding, legal action and I took responsibility for my part in that day. I can tell you none of it felt good. I didn’t feel good after I picked myself up off the ground, I didn’t feel good as I hid in the bathroom and took care of my scraped up arms and back. I didn’t feel good when my so called friends turned their backs on me. I didn’t feel good when my daughter looked me in the eye and told me she didn’t feel safe because I didn’t stop the and guy. It didn’t feel good when I showed up in the park to learn how to defend myself. I felt anything but good. I felt sad and lonely. I felt lost and broken. I felt ashamed and confused. I felt scared and and hopeless. And I fought all of that everyday for over a year in order to take responsibility. In order to feel good again.
[First, go read the whole thing, it’s worth it and there were a few other quotes I almost put up first till I hit that one.
Now when I read that my immediate thought was, “No one ever said doing the right thing was the easiest route.” I did a previous rant in the immediate wake and honestly her post and mine are intertwined together.
Feelings are driving the conversation for a lot of people right now, they want to do something, anything. As I said before:
They want to be able to look at a physical object and blame it for what as happened. They want to destroy the physical object and blame it for their grief.
They don’t want to admit that ultimately there was a person behind the gun. They don’t want to admit no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn’t be able to control him. They don’t want to admit all the efforts they took in advance to feel good in the wake of things like Columbine and other mass shootings in the end did nothing. Not only did they do nothing, but the may have made it worse.
To them though that last thought is an impossibility It is impossible that the actions they took to satisfy their feelings could have been counter productive. How could they? Their responses felt right to them in a previous time of emotional tragedy.
People currently forget that 11 years ago a group of men brought this country to its knees with a set of box cutters. The tool is a tool and nothing more. It’s use for good and evil rests entirely with the person holding the tool.
The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, gave her life ultimately trying to protect her students. She was forced, by law, to be unarmed in that encounter. The aggressor however broke numerous laws and had to actually steal the firearms to carry out his crime. Think about that for a second, objectively. We, as a community, trusted that woman, as well as the staff with the care and protection of our children. We trusted that they would do what is necessary to keep them safe and educate them for the future. We trust them enough to send our children there for a decent part of their young lives. Yet we refuse to allow them the choice of carrying a firearm to defend our children should evil come before them.
We refused to allow the people immediately on the scene to respond to the threat posed against the children. Instead the shooter was given 20 minutes to perpetrate his crimes. He was given 20 minutes with defenseless victims. Victims who were in the charge of responsible adults. Those responsible adults, responsible for the children in their charge, were forcibly disarmed under the law.
The law in this case guaranteed the outcome. We will never know what the outcome would have been had just one teacher been able to choose to be armed. We can hypothesize given previous events, such as the Pearl High School incident in 1997. But we can never actually know, all we can do is wonder.
It’s time to stop passing laws based on irrational emotion and examine a very simple and harsh fact. When evil finally shows up, how can we react. We focus too much on stopping evil out right and preventing it from ever happening. While definitely a worthy goal, it is almost impossible to achieve since you cannot actually control the aggressor. All you can do is react as quickly as possible and try to minimize damage. What you can control to achieve that goal is yourself and your response, except in many cases the law has neutered that ability from the victims. -B]
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.
Comments Off on Quote of the Day – Joe Huffman (12/17/2012)
These people enabled the murder of dozens of people, mostly children, by a single person. If a private citizen had enabled these murders they would be facing massive civil liability and probably criminal charges. Government employees should not be exempt. If we don’t have the prison space for all of them then turn the drug addicts, prostitutes, and other “criminals” who committed victimless crimes loose and make the room. These public servants stripped people of their rights to keep and bear arms and then put signs up advertising “Gun Free Zone”. It’s bad enough to enable cold blooded murder but to advertise the fact they enabled it and to be proud of it is seriously sick and criminal. This can and should be used as evidence against them at their trials.
[I’ve felt for a while that both the government and private entities shared culpability in mass shootings that occur within gun free zones. The forcible disarmament of victims, especially by force of law, to me implies an assumption of responsibility for safety by the ruling party.
We all know however that the law exempts itself from such responsibilities yet they create areas where the citizens are disarmed to be nothing more than defenseless victims for evil monsters.
I’m glad to see I’m not alone with these types of thoughts. -B]
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.
Mass murderers use different methods (arson, explosions, knife attacks, shootings), but two coincidence just jump out at me. The first is that almost all mass murderers are men. The other is that they seek out locations where good people are disarmed by law.
As gun owners, if we could just experience the grief and sorrow along with the rest of the country, instead of having it intruded upon by that impending feeling of doom about what the media, the politicians, and the people in society who don’t much care for civilian gun ownership are going to do to our lives, liberty and often times livelihood? If we could go through something like this without worrying how much we’re going to be the scapegoats?
Right now my heart weeps, sad that so many children will not get to live a full and happy life because of the actions of a mad man. There can be no question as to why he chose that target. He wanted his victims as defenseless as possible. There is no better way to achieve that goal than to go after children.
While I would rather mourn, console, and otherwise comfort the families who’s lives have been turned upside down by the actions of an individual I have no choice but to look forward and prepare for the fight on the horizon. Many will try to rush forward in the wake of this tragedy, forgetting rules that should be followed in the wake of something horrifying and disturbing as such as this incident.
Recently Obama gave a statement about the tragedy and stated the following:
Except there is no real 100% way to make sure that something like this does not happen again. The only thing you can do is make sure the tools and abilities for those around who can most quickly and easily respond. If you don’t believe me, look no further than this incident in China where a man committed the same atrocities with a knife.
There is evil in this world and the atrocities today illustrate and prove that. There are animals who are such due to a lack of conscience, a lack of morality and not even the law will stop them. Many would rather not have to see or deal with the evil that lies within these animals. Even more than that, they think that inanimate objects are some how responsible for the evil. They want to be able to look at a physical object and blame it for what as happened. They want to destroy the physical object and blame it for their grief.
I can understand that feeling, it’s a very hard thing to be angry at something that is invisible and outside of your control. No one likes the idea of someone else being in control of their fate, especially with regards to life and death. They want to do anything they can to give them the illusion that somehow they do have control and they have made a difference, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Despite that feeling it doesn’t change where the responsibilities lie. It doesn’t change the fact that a person an animal would do something like this. The problem and responsibility lie within the head of the thing who felt this was the way to achieve his 15 minutes of fame.
I will not use this cowards name, I will not support his new-found glory supplied by the mainstream media. I will not allow his fame to give the idea to someone else seeking their 15 minutes of fame.
How do you constrain or punish an animal who at the end of their crime merely wants to take their own life? They are escaping any punishment you might give them. The only punishment that remains is one provided through faith. At times such as this though, people with faith find it tried, often crushed.
Ultimately though, the best solution to this problem is to arm good men and women, I bow humbly to Edmund Burke on this one.
The disarmament of the good merely ensures their inability to act resulting in a triumph of evil.
All I really want to do right now is give comfort to those who need it. Alas, I’m not even allowed that moment of grief in solitude without needing to deal with politics. As Sebastian said at the end of his post though:
we may not be interested much in politics, but politics is very interested in us.
I wish I could effectively write something to help people grieve, but that is beyond my skill. While there are times I am good at conveying emotion through the written word, this isn’t one of those times. So I just leave you with this.
If you have kids, hug them and kiss them. Remember that somewhere there is a Christmas tree with presents under it that will not be opened. There will be an empty seat at the Christmas table without the glowing smile of a child at Christmas. Embrace what you have and be thankful. -B]
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.
Anyway, the correct answer to why do you need an AR-15? is because fuck you. Or, the more politically correct version because I can. You see, Piers, you don’t get a say in what I own or what I do. End of story.
[If you’re wondering what he was talking about. It was this show down between Alan Gottlieb and Piers Morgan.
This is the same Piers Morgan from this recent twitter escapade.
Yeah, that’s the tweet Alan was bringing up when Piers went off the deep end.
Mr. Morgan, I do not have to justify my purchase to you, the government, or any other person. It is called the “Bill of Rights”, not the “Bill of Needs”.
Tell me Mr. Morgan, why do you feel the need to open your fat mouth and spout drivel that is tantamount to blaming gun owners as a whole for the actions of an individual? Because despite what you may think, collective rights are B.S. and here’s a nice piece from Oleg Volk to help explain it. Here’s the abbreviated photo version.
Your claims that some how the youth of America can go out and purchase firearms willy-nilly is false and smacks of someone who has never been through the process. It is worthy of note that in this latest incident the rifle was actually stolen, not purchased. You claim that you want to stop the violence but instead focus on the tool and not the person and the act.
The choice of a firearm actually is a blessing despite what many people think. If given immediate and proper medical attention gun shot wounds have an 80% survival rate, regarding hand guns. (I highly suggest watching this video as it is a wonderful view into the world of terminal ballistics. If anyone knows where to find a better copy of it, please let me know.) Rifles have a different statistic but currently I am unaware of the actual numbers. The bottom line is you need to hit a vital organ to cause terminal damage. Rifles while more powerful and capable of more severe tissue damage still suffer from the issue of needing to hit a vital area.
You seem to think that firearms are the only tool available for mass murder, except that is anything but true. You know what is effective and honestly down right scary Mr. Morgan, fire. Fire can be set and scheduled so the murderer miles away before anyone knows what happened. If the Aurora shooter had used fire instead he could have killed every last person in that theater with a guaranteed success rate of 100%. All he had to do was block the exits with fire first.
You complain about why would anyone need an AR-15. You argue that there is no need for it. Yet it is the most popular rifle in America. Used for hunting, because we all know George Washington crossed the Delaware to get to his duck blind, sport shooting and even law enforcement uses the semi-automatic AR-15. I use my AR-15 for competitive shooting as well as Boomershoot.
Ultimately though Mr. Morgan, I don’t have to give you any other reason than that of, pardon my language, “Because Fuck You, That’s Why!” It is none of your business that I even have a firearm and it is not my responsibility to control the actions of others, much less be held responsible for their decisions or actions. Besides, there’s a reason my feathers ruffle when you and your compatriots start banging on the war drums like you do.
Frankly Mr. Morgan I don’t give a crap what you think either because you’re nothing more than a gun grabbing Brit. Guess you missed the fact that gun crime went up 35% in Britain, that’s not including the overall crime rate. Since you think that “Gun Deaths” are the only ones that matter. The fact is that there is no correlation between civilian gun ownership and crime much less causation. Which country has the positive slope on the trend and which has the negative slope? Remember now, negative is better. But as we can see in the video, facts don’t matter to you. -B]
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.
Raw Feed
FeedBurner Feed
Subscribe by Email
