Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Guess who is unhappy that NY's nunchuck ban was overturned?

Given it's my blog and most all of my content is about Cracked....

Yeah you can guess.

Sure they mocked people who would want to own nunchucks as "pony tailed" wannabees but the article admits "blanket ban of them in an entire state seems pointless, if not downright hypocritical".

So what's their problem?

The Judge striking down the ban cited McDonald vs Chicago.

Until recently, states had a lot more say when it came to standing their ground on weapon bans and telling federal laws to stay off their property. But in the 2010 landmark case, McDonald v. Chicago, gun nuts managed to clinch a vital victory when the Supreme Court narrowly decided that the 2nd Amendment is to be extended to state and local laws without exception. This has led to an onslaught of NRA-backed lawsuits targeting local gun control. But hey, some people got their nunchucks back. Yay?

Here's the thing  Cracked should only be worried about "2nd Amendment...  extended to state and local laws  without exception" if they think the gun control they want is unconstitutional.

If, as they maintain,  the gun laws they advocate for are constitutional... then wouldn't retain said laws?  Hell,  the ironic part here is that post McDonald many Circuit Courts have ruled that  AWBs, mag bans, and the like are constitutional.

And for a bonus.... Cracked admits that they're still okay with nunchuck bans with their ending paragraph

Fortunately, if you want to escape the capricious violence of America's most dangerous tool of carnage, there's now still one place that will protect you from it: Massachusetts. Oh, and it's also the last state that's still banning nunchucks.

Note the link goes to a Vox piece that brags about how Mass' gun laws allow police to deny permits to own guns for any reason and favorably quotes people talking about how the entire point of Mass' gun control laws is to make it so fewer people bother to own guns and thus cause a chilling effect.

Monday, September 17, 2018

Cracked: How dare the media never talk about the realities of Gun ownership!

Yes... that's seriously today's article: 5 Realities Of Owning A Gun (The Media Never Talks About)
(And for once the url is close to the title.)


The article does present itself as a "both sides are wrong".  Except it doesn't mention anything that gun control advocates get... wrong.

Other than the dubious claim that blue states don't pass gun control in the wake of mass shootings.  Which...  is hilariously false.  Given New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, California  all passed gun control measures and do so regularly.   Even Vermont and Florida passed gun control.

For all the talk of "gun fanatics" and how some states have "no licenses for dealers" (nevermind that dealers are federally licensed...),  the iron pipeline paranoia, and that  gun ownership is at an all time low...

There is this bit,  which comes after talking about how the NRA is all extremist

So maybe it's finally time to start paying attention to all the other gun rights advocacy groups out there. Like the left-leaning Liberal Gun Club, for liberals who love Berettas and background checks. Or the Pink Pistols, a group that thinks strappin' up is a great way to protect yourself from hate crimes. And there are other, even more conservative groups, like the Gun Owners of America, which regularly butts heads with the NRA for being too compromising. Truth be told, gun culture is much more diverse than it seems. Really, the only thing they all agree on is "Guns are pretty rad."

Okay...   (And it's nice that they're talking about other organizations but it's funny how the NRA's 5 million members can be dismissed as an exaggeration and a small fraction of gun owners, but these other groups that are much smaller are...  )

Still by the standards of Crack's recent gun control articles,  including one which read like an apologia for Nazi gun laws this is more... sane.

Heck it reads a bit like this one that came out two years ago 5 Reasons Gun Control In The United States Is A Lost Cause  with the url of: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-dumbest-things-we-do-in-name-gun-control/

Which, coincidentally is mentioned at the end to the article along with this also bit of relative sanity (from 2013) 5 Mind-Blowing Facts Nobody Told You About Guns




Saturday, August 25, 2018

So.... Cracked doesn't think Nazi gun control was "real" gun control"


Yeah..... they try to go after the Nazis s on gun control.

Guns can help stop a tyrannical dictator, and since every president gets compared to Hitler, it wouldn't be a bad idea to stock up, right?

Gee Cracked, which publications help push that narrative?

Truth: Gun Laws Became More Lenient Leading Up To The Holocaust
All German gun ownership was banned after World War I, but in 1928, Germany passed the Law on Firearms and Ammunition. It loosened gun regulations, but permits were needed, and all new gun purchases had to be registered. However, plenty of Germans, including Jewish citizens, just held onto their guns from World War I, so those went unregistered.

So... total civilian ownership ban to....  some ownership with full registration.  But... people would illegally ignore the registry?  (Note, that this myth isn't about Nazi gun control, but about the Jews being able to overthrow the Nazis)

It is true that when the Nazis came to power, they sought to strip Jews, communists, union leaders, and other enemies of their guns with the help of the registry, but that registry was so incomplete that many Jews held onto their guns well into the late 1930s. In 1938, Hitler further deregulated guns with the German Weapons Act, which exempted Nazi Party members from most regulations and lowered the legal age to own a gun from 20 to 18. At this point, they were essentially handing out firearms to whoever looked the least "exotic."

So... the registry wasn't effective because people, for some reason, didn't register their guns. The article also makes it seem like the registry being incomplete means that it's not "real gun control", somehow.  And the Nazis were giving guns.. only to party members and  people who weren't minorities. That's still some really nasty gun control.

Hell... that paragraph admits a "no guns for you".

But again...  so far the article is admitting that the Nazis specifically tried to disarm the Jews.  Which... isn't really the point.

The 1938 law did strip Jewish citizens of their guns, but that's an indictment of targeting specific demographics, not gun policy. Even for Jewish citizens who held onto their guns, a couple rifles wouldn't do much good when an entire army came to their doors. Remember, lax gun laws mean that the people who hate you have easy access to guns too. 
Well...  given in this case the  Nazis had the laws so Jews couldn't have them but their party members could. And it's not... about gun policy?  Oh,  okay.  That's literally the law setup making it so your enemies could get guns while you could not.

And finally one gets to "how much could armed Jews do".  Instead of the article's creepy tone of "Oh sure the Nazis tried to disarm Jews but that wasn't gun policy and Jews could ignore the law anyway!"


Again, it's... funny as all of the above paragraphs are... superfluous because the myth the writer is bashing was not "Did the Nazis disarm Jews" but "Would armed Jews have been a able to stop the Nazis?"

And that kinda takes just one paragraph

The French alone had 900,000 soldiers and 5 million reservists, but who'da thunk it, it's tough to stop an entire army bent on ethnic cleansing. Some Jews staged effective resistance efforts, but expecting them to have stopped the Nazis in their tracks would be like expecting a dozen guys at your local shooting range to stand a chance against a marine battalion. Regardless of your stance on guns, saying that Jews could have stopped the Holocaust if only they'd had more firepower is sleazy victim-blaming that historians have dismissed as "preposterous."

Victim-blaming?  That's ironic because that's proceed by this image caption:  "Plus there was one notable time Jews got their hands on a bunch of weapons. It didn't go well."
That sounds pretty victim blaming to me.

Let's never-mind the amount of forces the Nazis committed to he Warsaw Uprising . And that if there were a dozen of them the Nazis would have been in a worse spot.

Annnd let's ignore the question of if they knew the Nazis were going to kill them anyway, which way would they want to go out?

Maybe instead of spending time writing an... apologia for Nazi gun control laws,  Cracked would have spent more time wondering why the Nazis focused on seeking"to strip Jews, communists, union leaders, and other enemies of their guns with the help of the registry" while making it easier for Nazi party members to get guns.

Or at least admitting that a full and complete registry of guns does make it easier for a dictator to round up gun owners from groups he doesn't like.  And that incompleteness of said registry can stymie the dictator's efforts.

Or that a registry of guns  can and will be abused by an upcoming dictator?

Nah.



But we can see why the cracked writing staff can, by and large, support two ideas.  The first that Trump is a massive danger, out of line with traditional presidential norms, and willing to give support to his racist, corrupt supporters while punishing his enemies,  and the second that there should be a lot more gun control at the federal level, even if Trump is the one administering it.

Unfortunately, Cracked went about this by taking the above attitude towards Nazi gun control.
Namely that yes, it was specifically confiscatory towards "enemies of the state" and Party Members were lavished with guns. 

But since the registry was incomplete and the confiscation missed people, and more importantly, the upcoming fascist stat was so powerful, it didn't matter what the Resistance did and thus the Gun Control efforts weren't a bad thing in as much as they were pointless.

That's...  not the best way to square that circle. 

But gives some real gallows humor whenever Cracked advocates for the current #Resistance against Trump.


Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Hypotheticals.


Let's say someone, Person 1 is an advocate against the evils of X.

And said person been writing about the prevalence of X and people who are doing it.

Then it comes out that a friend, associate, or even another writer our Person 1 is a fan of (we'll term him/her as Person 2), has been accused of doing X.  And there's evidence of it.  X isn't criminal but it is a major social faux-pas.

Now there is a tendency for Person 1 to go "Well that's different!" "That was satire!"  "Person 2 doesn't think that way!" "That wasn't /really/ X!"     A lot of it doesn't even have to be naked partisan/tribal/whatever bias.

A lot can simply be "I know Person 2, thus I can make a better judgment on the totality of their actions".  Then add in that if Person 1 is predisposed to thinking favorably of Person 2....

Or that while Person 1 is an advocate against X but they think the punishment being demanded of Person 2 is inappropriate.  

There's a lot of subtleties that can be put into a how someone can react in a way that can seem like "It's different when /we/ do it!"

Now add in that Person 1 makes a point of "General internet people don't get to demand what I write about, who I debate and what issues I deal with."

Which is completely fair.

Though it still makes one wonder if Person 1 has.... blind spots about Issue X.


But then comes along Person 3.  

Person 3 (another writer and advocate) makes a debate challenge (on the subject of Y) to Person 4 (a politician).   Person 4 declines.   Person 3 has a snarky response.

And Person 1 jumps in with "Why are you going after Person 4!  You should be debating these other politicians about the evils of X!"

Which is....  delicious in its way.


Such a chain of events would make one wonder if Person 1 is having some deflection issues.  And while they may be sincere about their advocacy against X,  they may also be more than willing to use it as a bludgeon against rivals (who are not advocating X), while excusing the behavior of allies (who may be advocating X).

In short:  "It's different when we do it."

Thursday, July 19, 2018

If you want to know what Gun Control the ACLU does support...

You can find it here.

As oddball of Guns Cars Tech says: "They're for AWBs, capacity limits, "red flag" laws, universal checks, smart guns, requiring FOIDs that require you to pass a test..."

And yes that was written by their "Deputy Legal Director and Director of Center for Liberty"

Center for Liberty eh?

Said.... they're for red flag laws?  Didn't yesterdays article use the existence of red flag laws to say "see!  A Lack of gun control is why Civil Liberties are endangered"?

Why yes they did!

Their position paper does try to parse which gun control laws might be problematic, and which are okay,  though the analysis isn't exactly... deep.

Many of the options now being considered raise no civil liberties concerns. That includes bans on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and bump stocks. Raising the minimum age for all gun ownership to 21, currently the legal age for purchasing a handgun, also raises no civil liberties issues, as research on brain development shows that young people’s impulse control differs from that of adults.

Oh!  Glad to know it's that easy!

And yes it is that easy.

First are laws that regulate or restrict particular types of guns or ammunition, regardless of the purchaser. These sorts of regulations generally raise few, if any, civil liberties issues. Second are proposals that regulate how people acquire guns, again regardless of the identity of the purchaser. These sorts of regulations may raise due process and privacy concerns, but can, if carefully crafted, respect civil liberties. Third are measures that restrict categories of purchasers — such as immigrants or people with mental disabilities — from owning or buying a gun. These sorts of provisions too often are not evidence-based, reinforce negative stereotypes, and raise significant equal protection, due process, and privacy issues.

From earlier in the article, emphasis added.
In other words.  The ACLU is pretty okay with any gun ban as long the ban applies to everyone, and they can be convinced that any hurdles to buy a gun are fine as long as they apply to everyone as well.  But when some people are specifically blocked?  Then they'll have a problem.

Thus they see no Civil Liberties issue if all immigrants and citizens were banned from owning X,  but if just immigrants were bared from X  then there'd be a problem.

Okay,  Kind of odd they don't take a stance against May Issue.  Given that it empowers the police to pick and chose who can and cannot carry guns.

So, yes the ACLU hasn't been pro gun rights.  But yesterday's piece was particularly laughable in how they tried to justify their position.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

The ACLU begs the Alligator to Eat it Last

That's the way to take this article published on their own blog. A Pro-Liberty Case for Gun Restrictions

Jay Stanley one of the org's Senior Policy Analysts makes the case.

That is if Governments don't pass Gun Control Laws they'll instead pass other laws such as:
  •  More physical searches
  •  More Surveillance
  •  More databases and watch lists 
  •  More armed police in more situations
  •  More police shootings

And their solution is to push for gun control?
Nevermind that the War On Guns would make the War On Drugs look like a picnic.
But what Gun control is the ACLU looking for?
I mean Stop and Frisk was largely about checking people for /guns/, in a jurisdiction where Legal carry was defacto banned.
As for watchlsits, the ACLU was against the whole "No Fly No Buy" which is using secret blacklists to ban people from owning guns.
And do they really think that if the police are more suspect that someone has an illegal gun that they would be less inclined to wrongly use violence?
Meanwhile the ACLU in this /very article/ talks down Red Flag Laws and Extreme Protective Orders?
So... what gun control exactly do they think is okay?

But the last paragraph shows what it's really about:


As we as a society consider the issue of gun violence, these implications for American freedom also need to become part of the conversation. In particular, those who support expansive gun rights as a protection against excessive government power should strongly consider how much government intrusion and expanded power they’re willing to trade for those rights.

In other words:  Stop defending your gun rights you icky gun nuts!  The state's going to go after stuff I like instead!

Turn that around, the article is literally saying "Hey, how many of the rights I like can I get in exchange for agreeing to some gun control?"

Of course given Gun Control would result in less privacy (data bases watch-lists, ect), less due process (red flag laws and other bans), and more police interference....

It seems like a rather sucky trade.

Also... does the ACLU really want to take the argument "Because there are a lot of X in the country, the State may overreact and infringe on unrelated rights, therefore we should support restrictions on X!"

Then add in this stance where the ACLU has said this in an internal memo:  "Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed."


Yeah.




Sunday, July 15, 2018

Cracked Takes on Derpy Self Defense tools

And in this case they actually do more than one thing!
(As opposed to when their resident angry man with a shotgun mocked derpy martial arts and the first four items, on a list of five, were all the exact same thing.)

This time, a different writer talks about the silliness of stun canes,  blade coins, furniture that "converts" into clubs, a dress that has spider legs that stab out, high heeled shoes that can be used as knuckle dusters or stabbing,  and phone cases that hold pepper spray,  electric stunners,  blades, or even a gun.

So yes,  congratulations on a list of absurd, bad idea weapons that are invented by people without a real plan on using them but sell to people who like the idea of having a weapon... as an accessory.

Not for nothing 1/3 of the items in the list are from fashion designers.

And the article isn't overt in it's mocking of the idea of self defense.  Though it is blatantly ageist in thinking the elderly can't handle it.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

And here's Cracked being... lucid on self defense.

Specifically woman's self defense.

With 5 things about self defense women should know.

Basically:

  • Pretending you're  Wolverine with your keys is a bad idea
  • Groin kicks may not always work
  • Planning on your attacker getting closer is not always a good plan
  • Don't avoid eye contact
  • Guns should be carried in a way that is accessible and training is very useful.
Specifically:

People like the sense of security that comes with a gun, but a false sense of security is your enemy when we're talking about self-defense. Carrying a gun doesn't save you the trouble of learning this other stuff; it brings with it the responsibility to learn a whole other round of lessons, lest you wind up shooting yourself, a stranger, or just gifting a mugger a free gun. The more dangerous the weapon, the more responsibility you have to learn how to use it right.

And earlier are mentions that knives and other weapons are handy but can have similar limitations.  The Tueller drill is also mentioned. As is the need for observation (the point about eye contact).

There is a bit of a disconnect with the mention of the weakness of self defense weapons that aren't ranged and that guns have a risk because a bad guy can still close in before you can draw.  But... that's honestly the truth given how quickly a person can close the gap.

So all in all, a pretty good article.

Course that's what happened when you have a sober self-defense trainer writing a piece instead of a chest-thumping misogynist like their previous articles on self-defense training.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Indianapolis Anti-gun measure goes down in committee


What measure you might ask?  Given Indiana has strong preemption.

Well... if passed by the City-Council  this measure would...   tell the Statehouse (the reps specifically) and others via memo that the City-Council wants gun control.

And the gun control that one man Zach Adamson  (D-17)  is pushing is a real moon-shot.
Proposal 112 would ask for all sorts of AWB, private sale, and magazine bans.

And today the Community Affairs Committee met to talk about Proposal 112

Which is as I said is pretty much: "Guns are bad, and the Indiana state house should ban assault weapons, hi cap magazines, ban private sales, and not support national reciprocity

And this evening.... the council debated, took in public statements, and voted on it.

It started with Zach Adamson  (D-17) a grandstanding fellow who  read his resolution and bragged about being in DC for a "die-in"

He did the standard litany of "weapons of war" and "designed to kill"  and went with how assault weapons are specifically to mow down lots of people.  But would not define /what/ caused it.


Maybe about 40% of the seats were full and there was at least a dozen gun control supporters there. They were mostly white, almost entirely female.  Meanwhile it turns out there were at last three pro gun people in attendance (and in fairness we were all white bearded 30's to 40's)

There was a lot of finger snapping and murmuring in support on their part.

Zach Adamson  was joined by two councilmen who were not on the commit and thus I did not get their names.  Both were vocal supporters of the resolution.  The older fellow who was African American was very much on background checks and having mental health component to a screening.  His statements did not indicate he was as hard core anti-gun as the others.

The other fellow, a younger white man who lounged back in a stance that made it look like he wanted to put a foot on the table was more bellicose.  He was the biggest one going "We need to do Something!"  He was particularly angry at comments about how to define an Assault Weapon. 

He would going on about how debate would bog down on "defining what an assault weapon is"  and nothing would pass.  Nevermind that to tell the police what is and isn't illegal to own it has to be defined.

Rather quickly it went to public comments.  Forgive me as I was taking notes by hands and wasn't able to names and good notes.  (Each speaker had 2 minutes)

Surprisingly despite the anti-gun folks having a large number of people  they only had 6 speakers.

And this includes that the first three were high school students.  They did the bit about that their movement won't stop, and their needing to feel safe and so on.

Then it came to a nurse who also gave an anti gun position and talked about the trauma she saw.


Next was a pro-gun fellow.  A vet, he was passionate and  maybe not as smooth as he could have been and he pushed pass time.  But he did point out how assault weapons are defined. How much rifles of any type are used in crimes.  That the overall crime rate had been doing down, that the Clinton AWB was ineffective, and that the UK was now going after knives.


Next game another pro-gun person that pointed out about violence and that the resolution did not define anything and the myth of the "high capacity" gun and the arbitrary nation.

Then...  well I talked.  I pointed out the illogic of how Zach was against national reciprocity despite Indiana already having universal reciprocity (we will accept any state or country's permit). So I asked if he was against Hoosiers being able to carry in other states or if he wanted to amend that part of Indiana state law.

I also pointed out that despite him listing Santa Fe in his list of atrocities, that killing took place with a shotgun and a revolver and killed 10Despite him including that incident and him stating that assault rifles are uniquely evil.  

I then went into how the resolution is unhelpful because it doesn't /define/ what it wants to ban.  And that previous bans focused on cosmetic and ergonomic features and that even from the gun control standpoint if their goal was to focus on the lethality...

Then came an anti-gun person and her argument was about background checks being stronger and pointed out how she is a prohibited person because she sees a therapist.  Which... isn't quite right.  She also said that her children come home every day crying and scared for their lives afraid they'll get shot.

Last was an older woman who was in the Air force and had a marksmanship badge. And all about the guns she had in 4H teaching her kids on hunting.   And her thing was "military style" and how the 223 (not that she named the caliber) was too powerful and caused so much extra death.

Then it went back to the council committee.

Again was the "spray of gunfire"
And Zach went on about how the ergonomics of an assault weapon aren't "just cosmetic"   and that how slower fire was more accurate and thus more lethal.

There was no more public comment but one can see that he's making the argument that would cover even more guns...


Again was a "Why do this?" rhetorical question with them going on about a demand to "Do something" push.

The non-voting  white councilman  waved the bloody shirt by talking about a teenage girl that was shot about 12 times and how "she doesn't care how an assault rifle is defined", and went on against "arguing over semantics" and "can't do anything over than bicker over what an AR is".

The black non voting councilman did the  "we pass laws to regulate human behavior" and used the analogy of "gun laws aren't pointless even though people violate them, because we have traffic laws and people violate those."
and his example was speed limits.
Edit:  Interestingly I think he's William Oliver D-9 the sponsor of the bill. So goes to show as he was far calmer about this than Zach was)

Where heck it's a form of  /protest/ when a large group of cars do the speedlimit on a highway.  Especially one with the double nickel.

But he went back to his zone on how he wanted background checks, and bemoaned about how whenever there's a murder people spot warning signs in retrospect.
Which...  given that many of the recent killers have been people who /should/ have failed their NCIS check if not for government incompetence.

There was also a comment about people buying guns in the parking lot of the Indy 15000 gun show.


It turns out that Zach  /hates/  preemption.   He railed against the statehouse taking power for itself  and limited what the municipality could do.

He also went on about how congress made it legal to own "tools that can only kill mass amounts of people"

And on the "fetish with guns is out of control"


Then came one councilman who had been silent until now.
Brian Mowers (R-25) actually gave a pro-gun speech about how pointless this was and described how the NFA process was to get actual machine guns.  (he was a bit incorrect in that the ATF doesn't have to be informed what room you store the gun in, but you /do/ have to tell the ATF if you plan to cross state lines with it).

He also pointed out that if we go with "weapons of violence" then golf clubs would count as would knives  and that a resolution that can't even define what it wants to make illegal is pointless.

Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15)  then spoke and was cagy.  She also said this was pointless saying it was a "waste of paper"  but encourage "both sides" to go to their state reps and congress and lobby them and put their "passion to them"

And then....  the chair of the committee  Frank Mascari (D-21) literally pulled out his pink carry permit and explained what it was.   And did a bit of a "gun ower but"  and pointed out that many other people on the committee had permits as did people in the audience.  And then went onto the "do something" bandwagon. 

Then came the vote.

Shockingly.  The proposal failed 3-2.

Key reason?   Well....
here's the list of people on the committee:

Chair: Frank Mascari (D-21)
Zach Adamson (D-17)
Jason Holliday (R-20)
Blake Johnson (D-12)
Brian Mowery (R-25)
Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15)
Christine Scales (D-3)


Neither Christine Scales (D-3) nor Blake Johnson (D-12) attended.

And it was a party-line vote.

Zach Adamson (D-17) and Frank Mascari (D-21) voted for it.
Jason Holliday (R-20), Brian Mowery (R-25), and Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15) voted against.

So I'm pretty sure that Zach is not happy with Scales or  Johnson

Interestingly immediately after the vote about 80% of the anti gun folks picked up their signs (which they only waved a bit at the start)  and marched out.

What makes that /especially/ interesting  is that the order was goofed There were two proposals to be talked about in this session, one the gun control, and another about " a study commission on gaps and disparities in providing social services in Marion County".

It looked like the gun control one was going to be first on the schedule but for some reason the  social services one was first.   And at least 6 of the gun control folks were taking pictures of the rather wonkish presentation on the social services and cross program efficiencies and they did this for like the full half hour that very nitty-gritty presentation (which had no public questions) took.
(It also passed 4-1)

And yet...  the minute it turned out that the gun control proposal went down.
They left.  One even screamed and obscenity in the hall I think it was a "Fuck guns!"

Zach was also not happy, but took in stride and pledged that he would write memos on his own if he didn't get it but that he'd be back with another resolution.


Which was really cross purpose for them because for one Jason Holliday (R-20) who had also been largely silent explained why he voted no.

He wanted something that was comprehensive and would have mental health and background check work,  but he did not support anything that would  have "punitive action"

Zach went onto this and said that he was going to schedule a meeting with Holliday to see if he could get something,   even if it was a piecemeal approach of having like a dozen of these resolutions in little bits.

There were other bits of like Pfisterer and Mascari talking of their votes and city-council strategy that really... hurt the gun control folks to just leave.  Meanwhile the gun rights folks (all three of us) stayed.

Then it adjourned.

And it turns out that the gaggle of gun control advocates were just... down the hall talking with each other.  And then some did leave and there was a "well we know who the NRA buys, and they don't care about the children!"

So...  it's a bit surprising that this went down.
Probably a bit of a fluke given 2 of the 7 members of the Community Affairs Committee didn't show up.

Zach Adamson  will be back and push this again.   And I'm sure next time he'll try to twist more arms to make sure he has the votes.

(Though that he didn't do this given this resolution has been his baby since April)

Still, that he couldn't even get his symbolic resolution out of committee  has to hurt.

So for now I'm quite amused.

And tomorrow I'll write to Pfisterer,  Holliday, and  Mowery
You might want too as well. 

Monday, May 21, 2018

Cracked: A lot of firearms "training' is crappy.

That's at least the actual thrust of this article (by a different writer this time).

The article is about how "gun nuts refute their own arguments."

But the first two in the list are a really bad DVD and a really bad book. How bad? The book is "My parents open carry."

The first, somehow, refutes that firearms can be used for self defense, and the latter, similarly, somehow, debunks that firearms can protect one's family.

Those are pretty pedestrian.  The confusing one is #2  "Men Are Monsters, So Women Need Guns!"
Um... this is the same publication that goes in on #MeToo and the problems of abusive men.

But the confusion grows:

About 38 percent of gun owners are women, but they don't seem to be interested in shooting those guns for murder or self-defense. In 2014, only 15 ladies gunned down a man in self-defense. That obviously doesn't include the women who defended themselves at sea and told no one but the sharks what they had done, but 15 seems low, doesn't it? That's the number of women out of 16 who probably had every right to kill a man in 2014.

That seems... low.  Oddly enough that's the one time the article has no citation, and why 2014?  Why not a decade? Weirdly, in the same paragraph the writer then admits that it seems very low.  Okay.

Moreso the writer notes that women aren't abusing their guns.

And right after this the article goes on about the Detroit case where a woman was put in prison for using a gun to defend her family.  Um... so guns are bad because the police and prosecutors are railroading people?

Women obviously don't want to solve their problems with guns, so why are we pushing them so hard to do so?

Parse that.  So women being law-abiding with their guns (nearly 40 percent of women are gun owners by his own admission...), and the writer thinks that women don't have the agency to make their own decision to by them? That they're somehow being tricked?  That's rather sexist.

Though this is the same guy who then goes on to proudly put in a tweet where he goes all macho chest thumping and uses a term for female genitalia as an insult.

So.... yeah sexist.


And how does he prove gun owners are the real sexist folks?  By citing a 30 year old VHS.  Okay... there's a lot more recent stuff to show that gun owners still have some massive problems with appealing to women (Hey let's make guns pink!)

And how is the video?

It's crushingly boring, which is unexpected. Gun videos for men feature corner-pieing drills and quick draw techniques to eliminate multiple ninjas. Ralph Mroz showed me how to talk an outlet mall shopper into carrying a loaded firearm and then kill him by diving under an SUV and shooting his feet. This lady video is almost un-American in how it treats guns like exhausting responsibilities no one should ever touch without expert training. Lee learns about holsters, eye and ear protection, trigger guards, and firing pins from two creeps who talk like they only teach firearm classes because their hypnotism careers never took off. They seem to truly want to keep the viewer alive.


What?  The writer had the whole of the bad "ladies training" to pick and he went with the dull one that actually tried to be responsible and do it by the numbers.

Note the double standard.  A video that is all  "ninja-skills" is mocked for being a power fantasy, and one that's nuts and bolts is mocked for being boring.

Nevermind the writer's intention was to mock the video for being sexist.

As I said: confusing.

And last is the old "Guns are to overthrow the goverment"

Which....   well becomes revealing.  The article goes from the confused muddle of before to angry ranting.

There's repeated calls of gun owners as stupid, mentally-ill racists with small penis.  The writer bragging about the illegal weapons he proudly owns.  Him fantasizing about the US military killing civilians.  Him actually encouraging gun owners to join said militant repression on the  side of the army.

He goes into the all gun owners are mentally ill right after talking about how gun owners are all about making it so mentally-ill people can buy guns. (Someone who knows the transitive law can figure out tat one)

And he advocates that gun owners resist any confiscation by illegally hiding their guns.

He then once again points out an abuse of police against a lawful gun owner and uses it as evidence that...  gun owners are racist because they didn't have the revolution that the writer seems to be fantasizing about.

The telling part is that the article doesn't really mention any specific laws, guns, or accessories that he has a problem with.

And it ends with a photo of him pumping a shotgun while angrily, glaring at the camera.

Which is... problematic.

But the article seems to be more of a rage-filled form of venting than anything else.   Given the comments are by and large a similar bout of cathartic release...



Monday, April 16, 2018

Cracked: Letters of Marque are Scary!

Yes,  Cracked has an article about 5 Crazy Scenarios You Didn't Know the Constitution Allows

It's a funny list,  given there's fretting over  a "dictatorship loophole",  which no one is sure how it would work, other than maybe the shocker that constitutional amendments can amend the whole of the constitution and thus can do any dictatorial thing, including change how the Constitution is amended...

Fretting over Texas being able to split up, that the President can devolve his powers to the VP,  and that people can still be put into slavery and bondage if it's "punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."  Which given the vast, vast number of people incarcerated in the US, shouldn't be a surprise.

But the one that tickled my fancy was the "The Constitution Could Make Us All Pirates".  That is freaking out about the Letters of Marque part.  (As a side note, it's a bit funny as some Cracked writers would go all fanboy about pirate hunting).

Which goes to what made me amused.  See this is Adam Wears' work.    Right, the same guy who is stating in this article that the Founders Intended to be able to give average citizens the power to hunt pirates, with actual warships,  thinks the Founders never wanted average citizens to have firearms.  And thinks this to the level that it was NRA insanity that got the idea of an individual right tricking the courts.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Cracked: Fake News Makes people Afraid of Mass and School Shootings

That is David Wong Cracked's Executive Editor's assertion in this list.

"13 Myths About Society Too Many People Believe"

Specifically:
6) Myth: School Shootings Are Rampant
7) Myth: Mass Shootings Are A Significant Danger To The Average Person

And he does a calm rational way to show that yeah these myths are false.
And he's saying this as someone who would happily ban these guns.

I do have to wonder how he squares this with Adam Wears  the frequent, and bilious, anti-gun writer he has on staff.

Ah well. Does show that for all the time Cracked goes against pearl-clutching moral panics in the media, they're quite guilty of it too.


Also Wong takes apart a few other sacred cows so the article does read like one of those older Cracked pieces where one has to wonder if this is being subversive or not.

Friday, April 6, 2018

Looks like I missed one...

So turns out Cracked had another gun article about a month ago.

And turns out that this and the last two articles were all written by the same  Adam Wears.


Behold 6 Psychotic Gun Accessories (You Can Totally Buy)  which is an interesting mix of silly and more silly things.

Through it all Wears' tone is extremely angry  and literally ends with an unrelated "Even Australia recognized we needed gun control after their own horrifying massacre. Read about it here."

And that last link is a book about the massacre... not the laws passed after it.

What's interesting is the "even"  as if Wears is surprised that Australia passed gun control. Given Cracked has repeatedly pointed to they want Australia's gun confiscation to be done in the US.

The funny part is that despite Wears preening about how "We at Cracked have dedicated a lot of words to debunking the myths that popular culture loves to spread about guns"  his number one scary item? 

Tripods.  Seriously, the number one in the list is the evils of gun tripods.  Only a bit into does he get into "crank-fire" guns.


I am amused that the article opens with the expected "Gun owners are just beardo man-children obsessed with merch and pop culture" you know...  what Cracked used to jokingly, but lovingly, call their "core audience" Wears goes on about "when a gun nut spends too long on eBay."

One wonders if Wears really thinks that the things he listed can be bought on Ebay....

Thursday, April 5, 2018

It took them almost couple months....

But Cracked once again is beating the Anti NRA drum.


Now there's "6 Underreported Reasons Why The NRA Are Just The Worst"

Three things off the bat.  Note the the extremely clickbait formatting of the headline, even by Cracked standards  then note that the verb is conjugated for plural.  Meaning that it's not "the NRA" as being the worse,   but "NRA members" as being the worse.

And finally... under reported?    Reading the list of pear-clutching and conspiracy mongering the list is all stories that are pretty well known.

I'm just amused that Silencers (#1) are both somehow so effective that they're prefect assassin devices, but also so ineffective that they're pointless in reducing hearing damage.

And that when Smith and Wesson is pressured by the goverment to go into Smart Gun technology that's perfectly fine, but when gun owners decide to no longer by their guns  then it's suddenly an affront to the free market.

As a minor note, it is amusing that in some cracked articles Waco and Ruby Ridge are signs that the goverment is reckless and crazy and abusive of power,  and in other articles those events are legitimate and questioning them is just conspiracy mongering.  But since Cracked had their big editorial and contributor cull earlier this year, they probably can't do checks for consistent editorial stance.

 That said, I'm a bit surprised Cracked took them this long to write another article.


Sunday, April 1, 2018

Small Business Bites End.

And we come to the conclusion.

Though there's room for a sequel, but, more importantly, there's always revisons.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Schedule Slip

Alas no writing to put up this Sunday.

The plan is for next sunday to have another scene up, which may be the last one for Small Buisness Bites.

So, there's that at least.

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Small Buisness Bites... aftermath.

So...  Camille and Victoria had a spot of trouble.
And now they've got some of the consequences starting....

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Small Buisness Bites Action scene

After a week delay, I've got a new scene up.

And this one's got some action

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Sunday Writing.

No Small Buisnes Bites today

Instead I've got a preview of another idea of mine.

This one is more... pulpy.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Small Business Bites Scene 4

And the story keeps truckin' along.

Camille and Victoria are making plans for what to do about Valli's problem but things may spoil their plans.

Saturday, February 24, 2018

How do you get a Gun Control Advocate to be against armed agents of the state?

Have said agent be a teacher.

But hardening proposals also exhibit a circular logic that runs deeply counter to the spirit of the Second Amendment. Again, that provision implies a duty to resist tyranny, in all the forms of military, surveillance, and governmental overreach that helped spark the revolution. Suggestions to create a police state in American schools, however, mirror other pro-authoritarian tendencies that run counter to this instinct. In the creation of the carceral state, in the expansion of drug laws, and in the extreme militarization of police in recent years, people have argued that placing more guns in the hands of authorities is the only way to keep people safe. But why would pro-Second Amendment enthusiasts be in favor of providing more firepower to the government?
Of course the teacher in this question isn't armed as a requirement for their job.  Nor is it an issued weapon.  The object is instead to give the option for someone to legally carry a personal weapon.

Though to get to that bit you had to read through a lot of drec.

It also ends on an interesting note.

One legal theory used to oppose the preferences of many defenders of the Second Amendment is based on the fact that the militarized American police state has advanced far beyond the ability of any possible well-regulated militia to stop it. But lost in that observation is the fact that Americans—many of them staunch gun-rights advocates—have pushed repeatedly to bolster the military and the creep of militarism into other civic arenas. 

A true point.

They’ve then trapped the country in an arms race between government and civilians, one in which civilians face severe losses from both state and private violence. And now students, protected in schools by the most basic tenets of the social contract, find themselves in the line of fire.

Except the social contract doesn't work if the police refuse to do their part...

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Cracked: Gut the NRA!

I exaggerate.  A little bit:

To hear gun control proponents out, one might think that the best, fastest solution to the mass shootings plaguing our country would be to take a shiny litigatory scalpel and excise the NRA -- with their bottomless lobbying coffers, poisonous conspiracy theories, promotion of violence against protesters, and all-around assholery -- from politics and wider society. It's hard to argue against that. We certainly wouldn't stand for that shit from, say, the dairy industry. But the NRA somehow gets a pass every damn time.

 And then Cracked goes with the old chestnut of:  Oh but the NRA used to be good when it was a hunting and marksmanship program and didn't try to rock the boat by fighting gun bans!

 And followed by a paranoid conspiracy view of the Revolt in Cincinnati.

But this is the biggest part of Cracked's conspiracy:

Enter NRA 2.0. Within years of their rebirth, a slew of law review articles -- written by scholars funded by the ILA -- began to appear that argued that this reading was "incorrect," that the Second Amendment doesn't just guarantee state militias, but everyone the right to buy, stockpile, and use guns. And not just hunting rifles, but also pistols and other firearms crafted specifically to allow human beings to kill human beings without any training or skill.

The fiends!

The support of prominent politicians such as Orrin Hatch and Ronald Reagan soon codified this definition, and as the years wore on, public opinion started to shift accordingly. By 2008, 73 percent of Americans supported the "everyone gets guns" interpretation of the Second Amendment. It was almost inevitable that when the time came, the Supreme Court would agree.

As a result of this ruling, the court refuses to hear any other gun-related cases, apparently considering the matter settled. And that's perhaps the worst thing: By refusing to hear any other cases (and remember that the old interpretation was challenged four times), they're allowing an interpretation of the Second Amendment to exist that, unlike the rest of our constitutional rights, is totally unrestrained. 

What?  Totally unrestrained?
Umm....  then how come there's ANY gun control laws at all?

If that were true then how could several states have assault weapon bans or magazine bans?  How can there be federal regulations on the sale and purchase of new guns?

Heck totally unrestrained implies that machine guns could be bought via mail order with no background check?

Though the delicious part is that Cracked points out how the NRA are suckers for supporting Reagan despite the gun control he signed.   After starting the article screaming about how Trump didn't do anything to ban bump stocks.

Except  Trump did do just that.

No gratitude.  Which is to be expected.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Small Business Bites scene 3

Another part of the little story.

And yes the reason they were called in for this "favor for a friend of a friend" is revealed.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Small Business Bites Scene 2

Why not?
Here's a bit more.

Bit more world building and character interaction.

Friday, February 9, 2018

Helping!

Hey I know that guy!

I still get a bit of "impostor syndrome" when someone mentions my helpfulness as a teacher...


Cracked: Have racism allegories in your stories..... No not like that!


Shorter Cracked:
But they're all female. So that has to count for something, right?


1) Stop making your fantasy-allegorical races physically /different/!
2) Stop having humans react to non-humans in a way that changes their current prejudice stack! (Why I mean it's not historically the definition of who counts as "white" can expand depending on the number of "non-white" people are around)
3) Stop giving them unique/special powers!
4) And stop giving them fantastical and interesting threats!
Gee.... and then they ponder "Gee why aren't people interested int he stories that we want to say?"

Mostly I linked this because I'm back in the saddle of writing a story that has an alien species that well... are stronger than humans, have abilities humans don't have, and oh yes look like demons.

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Small Business Bites

Got the first scene of my new short story project up on the other blog.
Can be read here.

(Temporary for now given how... hilariously dated that blog title is)

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Cracked on Self Defesne... not entirely bad.

Huh.... this advice from cracked is actually pretty.... good. There's a little bit too much of "you'll get killed in the street!" and "Criminals are invincible ubers so don't even try."

But.... The points about the value of alertness, deescalation, realizing a fight can be sudden, unexpected, and more brutal than one expects are valid. As is the article being open about saying it is not a fitting venue to tell people how to fight back.

There's also passages like this which are entirely good advice:
So while a lot of armchair badasses may think "I want to train to fight so I can pull the knife out of a mugger's hand and shove it aaaalllll the way up his ass," Richard does not consider that self-defense. Self-defense is saying, "Well shit, he can have my wallet. It's not worth a freaking blade in my lung." Or even better, saying, "That guy's acting weird, I'm getting out of here" five minutes earlier.

Yuuup, a good class will spend as much time on when to use force in response to an attack as what options are available.


Of course then the article undercuts everything by ending with:

"It's also not a bad idea to do what millions of women around the world have done, and get yourself a can of mace."

This isn't to knock a spicy treat dispenser; they have a very valid role, but.... after an article full of cautions and caveats ending with "Little Lady should just buy X" kinda undercuts the whole thing.

(For one such dispensers will blow back when used, and have a limited range, and may not work, so practice and training can /really/ help)

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Bitish Rationing in WW2, the rest of the story

InRange TV continues this interesting bit of history with 6 more videos

2:  What food one gets in a week

3:  Cooking to deal with the rations

4: the National Loaf; that is how bread was rationed

5: More nuts and bolts of the rationing system

6: Where Cafeterias and Restaurants fit in with the system

7:  Black Markets and booze

8: Conclusions

What's interesting is to see that for such a system to work certain levels of competence, fairness, and acceptance are needed on the level of the goverment at a minimum.

First the state has to make sure the system actually runs and that there is food available.  That is if a product is being rationed then having it available in some level is vital.  As is ensuring that people can actually live on the rations provided.

Second the system has to at least attempt to minimize the whole "shut up prole know your place" sentiment that is pretty eternal. Where the connected and well to do, especially if those people are the ones running the system,  can still gorge themselves on whatever they want.  (That said given game one harvested was not rationed, and hunting in the UK is very much a well-to-do pursuit...)

Third is acceptance.   Teetotalers and prohibitionists pushed for Lord Woolton, the man running the system, to ban alcohol in England. (Their argument was that grains used in booze could be better used in food) Woolton pointed out that asking workers who where already increasing their hours and lessening the variety of their food, to also give up all booze would cause riots.


One can see that  in today's world of  state governments that can't even keep a lottery self-funding,  goverment health organizations that enact polities that increase obesity,  where well to do bolivators and goverment mandarins take private jets to exotic locations to lecture on how the proles should have less electricity, and demand policies that seem to be driven out of spitefully denying people simple joys....

Well,  competence, fairness, and acceptance are in short supply. 

Sunday, January 21, 2018

British Rationing in WWII

Ian on Inrange TV has a new series coming up



So far there's an overview of some of the nuts and bolts of the British WW2 (and beyond) domestic rationing system.
Not just linking for a historical interest, but as this was a massive state regulation of food with rationing (obviously), price controls, wholesale purchase, attempts to influence supply and demand, and social engineering.
And this is a scheme that seems to have functioned fairly well, resulted in improved health, and had less black market activity than many other rationing programs.
My natural libertarian leanings recoil at such at thing, but in the points of intellectual honesty I am curious to learn more.

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Opening lines.

That's the first step right?

Well I have an idea of characters and setting, still planning the plot. As it's a short story do have to be careful about size and the 'verse.

But I'm pretty happy with this opening line:

When meeting a demon over drinks it pays to wear your nicest holster.  

It's a start.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Backup Procedures

Way back in the day I participated in National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo).

I worked on a story called Backup Procedures.

Think of an alt-history future-pulp on other planets humans travel to via submarine.  Where humanity's allies in this universe are a race of large crab-like creatures and a demonic-looking all female species which is not actually demonic but created from humans and a race of eldritch old ones.

Never finished it.   Didn't even get to revise it like I promised.

And I'll admit my track record is... well time, time and time.

But I'm thinking maybe I could start with a short story to get back into  the 'verse

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Constitutional Carry for Indiana?

Another attempt is being tried with House Bill 1022.

As Tam says:

Contact your local legislator, Hoosiers, and also make sure that Speaker Bosma's office know that we will not appreciate him burying this in committee or shuffling it off to a study again. You can't call yourself "Indiana's Conservative Leader" and continue to kill gun rights bills. Pick one.

And I'll echo her mention that if you're  Hoosier and not a member of ISRPA, join up.  They're a great state-level organization and do the yeomen's work for gun rights in this state.