Do your research!

Larry Correia gives the business on guns and fiction.



In short, make sure you know what you're talking about otherwise you'll snap the reader right out of the work.

I recall one time I was editing a scene for an Irish friend who had never shot a gun, and it showed. The fellow thought that when you pulled the trigger each stage of the action's motion moved slow enough that you could feel each part.

But it's not just guns. It's anything you want to write about. Or as Larry said "It's like having your character get into the car through the trunk." Now not everything you can experience, but (provided you live in the free world) firearms are.

"And all of these things are easilly countered by talking to a gun nut for 5 minutes, or going to the range yourself, even just once."

Via Weerd

Yet another predictive failure of global warming models?

Contrary To IPCC Climate Models, Massive Human CO2 Emissions Still Unable To Reverse Nature's Global Cooling Over Last 15 Years

This is my shocked face.

Of course the warmists fail to ask the most fundamental question: What if Your Core Hypothesis is Wrong? Link to a related post by Weerd.

Here we see confirmation bias run amok as "scientists" struggle to explain why their hypothesis is right despite a lack of clear data.

They're still having trouble finding a correlation between certain human outputs and specific climate effects. Let alone finding strong evidence of causation.

And yes, given the limitations of -well- planetary climate causation will be hard to prove.

Tough. That's like saying we should have just accepted the existence of the Higgs Boson because it would have been too expensive and hard to run the experiments.

Science doesn't work that way.

The latest education controversy? Algebra!

Let's look at another "debate" that some of our "elites" are demanding

Algebra

Is there too much of it? Heckuva op ed there New York Times.

This debate matters. Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent. In the interest of maintaining rigor, we’re actually depleting our pool of brainpower. I say this as a writer and social scientist whose work relies heavily on the use of numbers. My aim is not to spare students from a difficult subject, but to call attention to the real problems we are causing by misdirecting precious resources.

Yes becasue too much of a critical form of math is what's crippling the US education system.

And writer and social scientist do not make one a good example of a math intensive field.

I say critical because algebra is at the root of the understanding of the symbolic nature of mathematics. With algebra equations can become fully abstracted. It's no longer 5+6 = ? but the relation of X + Y = Z.

Algebra is a linchpin that forms the base for all the forms of "higher mathematics" and is the root of all problem solving math. It bridges between arithmetic and calculus, trigonometry, geometry, proofs and probability/statistics.

I have sympathy to taking issues with schools wasting money and having frivolous requirements. And I would prefer people to have more choice in what classes they take.

I also acknowledge that math is difficult for many and that much of it has no function later in life. However, cutting algebra for high-school seems to be the last math class you'd want to ditch.

If you want to streamline math requirements for those that don't feel they need it, take out prob and stats and the trigonometry. Paring down Calculus goes without saying.

Even Mr. A hates it: "If we just dumb everything down enough, we'll be able to say everyone is an A student and graduated high school! Won't that be great ,think of their self-esteem."

And then we get to the reason this "emeritus professor of political science at Queens College, City University of New York" has his eyes on Algebra.

Quantitative literacy clearly is useful in weighing all manner of public policies, from the Affordable Care Act, to the costs and benefits of environmental regulation, to the impact of climate change. Being able to detect and identify ideology at work behind the numbers is of obvious use. Ours is fast becoming a statistical age, which raises the bar for informed citizenship. What is needed is not textbook formulas but greater understanding of where various numbers come from, and what they actually convey.

I'm not sure I grok how knowingly reducing mathematical rigor would increase understanding of very opaque subjects that have a heavy mathematical basis.

Call me cynical but it seems almost as if he wants to remove the foundation of mathematical understanding "how formulas work" and replace it with a more route recall of "where various numbers come from".

Here's the thing, without a firm grasp of the former the latter is meaningless.

This is why the author suggested replacing teaching of algebra with prob and stats. One problem... and one that Mr. A gets "I wonder if he realizes that you need algebra to do a lot of that?"

Yeah, that's like trying to teach someone Compressible Flow instead of Gas Dynamics.
Or trying to teach them Calculus instead of Algebra.


And it woldn't be Mr. A if he didn't get in his normal digs: "I love how he cites opinions from teachers in Tennessee and West Virginia, too."

And when pointed out that California schools suck too: "California's not really that bad, as long as you aren't in one of the 95% hispanic parts."

So yeah, you get that from Mr. A. Also recall that the public school system is his model of how healthcare should work in the US.

Interestingly Mr. A actually points out what's so offensive about this article.

It’s not hard to understand why Caltech and M.I.T. want everyone to be proficient in mathematics. But it’s not easy to see why potential poets and philosophers face a lofty mathematics bar. Demanding algebra across the board actually skews a student body, not necessarily for the better.

Emphasis added. And Mr. A actually nails it pointing out the patronizing attitude the writer must have to "think liberal arts types are dumb as dirt."

This would be like saying engineering types don't need read all those dusty old plays or memorize a bunch of pointless years, and besides their mathy minds would be incapable of understanding such things, best to leave them be.

Let's go back to the idea of "diversifying education standards". Okay why just limit ourselves to math? Why not have it so students could avoid taking History or Literature or Science classes to concentrate on which areas they work best at?

That's not really sarcasm. The idea of academic concentration is perfectly cromulent. There is a very valid issue to argue concentration versus "well rounded".

You think there's too much focus on Subject X? Well what about Subject Y? This guy doesn't actually want a debate about education requirements. He wants to gut mathematical course-load and have students take statistics classes without actually understanding what they're doing.

All because it makes him feel better. Since more people with more A's is a good thing. Who cares how they got them.

The question becomes why he doesn't look into the crippling effects of forcing students to take english of history classes that they would flounder in and never use. Ah but he does have ideas for history:

I hope that mathematics departments can also create courses in the history and philosophy of their discipline, as well as its applications in early cultures.

Once again, compromise only goes one way. Familiar, eh?

The problem comes in presenting it as something that math must negotiate. The onus is on mathematics departments to change their styles and teaching.

Again you see someone opine on a subject that they know nothing about and demand a debate on said subject.

Nuclear Security Doing it wrong.

"Protesters" got into the Y-12 plant.

Though when you breach several fences to infiltrate a place where nuclear weapons components are built and nuclear material is stored in order to... spill human blood, protest might be too mild of a term.

Via. Reynolds.

And Cracked shits the bed.

And joints the bleating for "we need a conversation about guns"!

We get past the standard boilerplate of "I've shot guns but" and "I just want a real conversation and debate" and get to:

But guns are still a part of the core problem. If everything goes as expected this time around, not much will happen. But if nothing goes as expected, maybe we'll finally end up in a real conversation about guns and safety. And if we want that conversation to move beyond a simple "Well, that was tragic, here's hoping something like it doesn't happen again, and again, and again," then we need to stop saying the following four things, because they lead to nowhere. And as we all know, nothing gets done nowhere.

And then he picks for arguments that the writer doesn't want gun owners to use.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Fire and Drugs kill people, too you wanna outlaw matches and drugs?
Guns Save Lives
The Second Amendment says

Now this article is an amazing piece of rhetorical judo. Because no where does he actually have to talk about the Gun Control argument. And how banning guns would actually help things. And what should be banned and why.

Nope the entire onus is on the Gun Rights people to compromise and give up their arguments.

I'll ignore the first two points as they're the most worthless and concentrate on the latter two.

With the third one he concedes a lot of ground and then pretends he hasn't. He admits that guns have been used to stop criminals. Then he freaks out by people saying you defended yourself or that you protected yourself. He draws a direct moral equivalence between a causing harm to another person because you want their life, body, or property and someone fighting back against said aggressor.

Because I don't want to say that "Guns Save Lives" is absolutely meaningless. But it is muddy. It's just not all there, which makes it not have true meaning in the context of the larger conversation. The truth is, "Guns Have Saved Lives. Guns Have Ended Lives. Guns Are Meant to Kill." The issue isn't whether or not we have the right to protect ourselves and others, it's whether or not guns are the best instrument to do the protecting.

Look at his three properties of guns. This guy honestly thinks having something designed to kill and having to use it, in a situation where lethal force is legally justified is wrong. What is the alternative then?

And since he's "just asking questions" he doesn't have to provide a solution to what would be a better instrument. No he's too concerned about the poor goblins.

This is the closest he gets to a "solution"

A gun is not defense. The widespread use of an actual defensive weapon would potentially save more lives than a gun because, again, guns are for killing, not protecting. The sooner we are all provided a weapon LIKE a gun that merely incapacitates a person, the sooner we can safely defend ourselves, instead of defending ourselves by killing each other.

See fighting back is bad! You might hurt someone. We should all just wait until scientists invent sleep rays. You get attacked before that happens? Well too bad, if you fought back you'd just be making this worse.

Again it comes down to this man thinking that killing is never, ever legitimate. And that pending non-existent sleep rays it's better to submit to an aggressor than it is to fight back because fighting back risks killing him.

Classy guy eh?

He also does a collectivist argument that because some people misuse guns, other people who have not must pay for it.

As for the last point the Second Amendment this guy's a total window-licker. We'll ignore his inability to understand grammar and the meaning of comma placement, and his bleating about "it's for the militia only!"

To be fair, he is right in saying that the SCOTUS ruling could be very temporary victory for us gunnies.

Our Constitution, of course, has not been rewritten in more than 200 years (read: ever). But people change, and nations change. Ideals and rights change. Life was, ya know, totally way different 230 years ago.

Yes, it has been changed. Just a couple paragraphs previously you pointed out that it's the Second Amendment. Amendments are exactly that, changes. As for not being changed in 200 years, the last amendment went through in 1992

And here we see the magic of the author's framing device. We just need a conversation about the issue, and the thing getting in the way of the issue is those icky gun nuts. Never-mind what would come out from the issue.

And we get this familiar argument.

Back then, guns were muskets, and muskets could fire about three incredibly inaccurate rounds per minute. Today, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle can shoot off more than 60 rounds per minute with extreme accuracy, and reload in seconds. Perhaps it's time to reevaluate our needs and freedoms.

Now Linoge has a great takeaway of Michael Moore making the exact same argument.

I'll just add this. In 1807 Forsyth patented the percussion cap. This was only 15 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified. Most of the Founders were around at that time. Forsyth's invention led to a radically new firearm action that was far more reliable.

Note that there was no "Oh no the 2nd Amendment doesn't cover caplocks. It's just for flintlocks." You'd think if the Founders intended the 2nd to just apply to the guns they used, they'd have tried to halt this.

You might say, sure sure but it's not like guns could shoot faster with caplocks!

Let's talk about revolvers then. In 1836, Samuel Colt patented the percussion cap revolver. So about 45 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment another radically new firearm invention came out. One that dramatically increased the firepower, speed, and reliability of a weapon.

You went from having handguns and rifles that fired one shot before reloading to ones that could fire six.

And yet... the Second Amendment was still considered operative. Hell it could have been repealed or modified back then. Especially in light of a massive increase in firepower that happened and became common place within living memory of the ratification of the Second Amendment.

This is a country that banned liquor by constitutional amendment and then repealed that amendment with another.

But remember this article says nothing about what gun control laws should be passed and how. Again the onus is entirely on the gun rights people.

Oh and to show that this guy's not just anti gun but anti liberty this is the sentence that follows immediately after the last quotation:

In fact, regardless of the gun control issue, perhaps we're about 200 years late on reevaluating our needs and freedoms.

Well, well, well. Yes what freedoms and needs do we need to reeavluate eh?
And gotta love how he sneaks in "Why do you need a gun?"

I'll leave it to the reader to check out the nauseating whinny treacle he ends this piece on.

Cody here's a hint. You know why we gun people don't want a conversation? Because we know you antis are either arrogant lairs or arrogant ignoramuses.

For the liar there's this example from Chuck Schumer:

The basic complaint is that the Chuck Schumers of the world want to take away your guns,” Schumer said of the argument made by gun lobbies. “I think it would be smart for those of us who want rational gun control to make it know that that’s not true at all.

Okay so he's not trying to take away our guns; what's the law he's proposing then?

The amendment was sponsored by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Bob Menendez (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Schumer and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). S.A. 2575 would make it illegal to transfer or possess large capacity feeding devices such as gun magazines, belts, feed stripes and drums of more than 10 rounds of ammunition with the exception of .22 caliber rim fire ammunition.

So he's not after our guns, but he's after our magazines. Gee why would people complain he wants to take away our guns? It's like we can't trust the guy.

Where of where would anyone get that idea.

Here's another example with Bloomberg revealing himself to being an arrogant idiot .

“The last time I saw a deer wearing a bulletproof vest was a long time ago,” Bloomberg said."

Here's the problem. You know those old wooden deer rifles, the hunting guns that are the "good ones". Well the most popular calibers for them are .308 or 30-30 Winchester. That makes them capable of penetrating IIIA or lighter ballistic vests.

That's not with armor piecing bullets mind you (which despite Bloomberg's complaints have already been banned) that's just pure kinetic energy. So one can see how saying
a deer wearing a bulletproof vest" is completely moronic. You want a gun that can reliably go through a bullet proof vest? A dear gun is exactly what you'd want.

This shows a deep ignorance of how firearms actually work. It's like taking advice on the abortion debate from a person that thinks a woman gives birth through her belly button.

For an example of mixing massive ignorance and fear mongering lies we can look to the President.

In short the president complains about battlefield AK-47's being on the streets and wants common sense gun laws to do just that.

The problem? AK-47's like that already fall under the National Firearms Act and are thus subject to national registration and special ATF background checks for every purchase and transfer. Oh and the registry was closed in 1986, so no new machine guns can be owned by civilians.

So... either he doesn't know machine guns are already under extremely heavy regulation. Or he's deliberately lying to get people to think scary commie/terrorist machine guns are flooding the streets and are easy to buy.

Ironic given that this is the same man that claimed Executive Privilege to shield the Attorney General during a Congressional Investigation into why the US government was flooding the streets of Mexico with guns.

You see, this is why we don't want ot negotiate with you guys.

The biggest lie of course is that the author's denial of being for gun control. He just wants a conversation.

Annnnnnnd *Facepalm*

Romney? Really? You didn't have to praise your stupid Massachusetts gun ban. And you really should not have tried to say "plenty of gun owners liked it!"

No banning possession of guns with certain cosmetic features or magazines over a certain capacity that have been built after a certain date is asinine. Then again so is much of Massachusetts gun laws. Just read the Story of Elanor.

Stupid Romney. Way to show that both you and Obama are just as beholden to Baron Bloomberg's madness. Weerd, who has lived under Romney's rule spells it out:

We all know that Romney and Obama are anti-gun big-government Nanny-Staters. Obama DOES have the distinction of sitting on the Joyce Foundation board of directors…of course Romney has actually banned guns in the past. I really don’t care who “Wins” the competition of who’s better or worse on guns, because America loses.

Sure his statements are ATTEMPTING to spin things on a pro-gun manner, but like the President, Romney has no interest in the 2nd Amendment or guns for any reason….so he comes off sounding like the idiot he is AND can’t help but toot his horn about how awesome his gun ban was for Massachusetts, gun owners, and the 2nd Amendment. Yeah, He’s the pro 2A “Assault Weapons” banner.

This' really shaping up to be a great election eh?

Here's my advice. Your vote at the ballot box for the president is futile. Sure vote for the wookie, I'm gonna, but either way we'll spend the next four years ruled by an anti-gun, preeening, statist. Or hell even for for the new Lizard, if you just want to kick out the old lizard.

Sure the "new" one might be less of an imature, bumbling, jackass, incompetent, but competence here is dangerous too. I guess some upside is that the media will do everything it can to bring Romney down. And punishing Obama for his incompetence does have a nice ring to it. And I guess the downticket races have import too. Especially on giving legislative pressure.

But really vote with your time. Encourage people who have an interest to make the jump and buy that gun, and get that carry permit, and so on.

Take people to the range. Be an ambassador for the people of the gun.

Increase the number of people that are armed, that are informed, and that carry. The more people that own these Evil Black Rifles, that CCW, the more they’ll know that our political masters are lying goobers and are coming after them.

Sure were's on the knife's edge with SCOTUS and it's not getting better, but if things now were the way they were 20 years ago SCOTUS would have had a much easier time.

Unlike the 90's self defense has replaced hunting as the socially acceptable reason for gun ownership. That's huge. People are not buying guns to hunt ducks. They don't care about blather for "I support hunters and sportsmen but I'm against these guns designed to kill as is every other right thinking gun owner."

That idea has evaporated to a fringe of the gun owners movement and is almost always the antis doing a false flag of the "I'm a gun owner but-"

For one thing it makes the politicians that gear up in organge to go duck hunting look even more out of touch and exposes their disdain and lack of understanding for Gun Rights.

For the other thing it's now much easier to articulate the why of guns. We now openly say: "Carry your damn guns" and "Yeah it is for killing. Sometimes goblins need that."

Not quite as good as "Fuck you that's why!" or "To keep the politicians nervous" but it's some real headway.

It's the difference between the lie of: "I'm not going after your pa-pa's deer gun."
Versus"I'm not going after your me-maw's glock."

Like this example of JayG's where an 89 year old woman defends herself from two burglars.

Of note, mind you, is that she didn't even fire the weapon - the mere sight of it was enough to send the two goblins running. This is an elderly woman against two younger males - what chance would she have had without the firearm?"

Yes good thing she was about to go out hunting and had her duck pistol with her.

These are exactly the stories the gungrabbers doesn't want you to know about. They would rather pretend that these stories - and the countless thousands like them - simply don't exist. Admitting that people can and do use firearms to protect themselves from predators means that there is a legitimate use for guns, and the antis (and media, but I repeat myself) certainly can't have that.

Admitting these stories exist means that they would have to admit that they want to make it easier for thugs to prey on little old ladies who have only committed the crime of being not as physically fit as their attackers.


And to be fair here's a "defense" of Romney's jumping on the bandwagon.
See Romney pinkie swears that he doesn't want "new" gun laws. But I'm sure he wouldn't mind if some just happened to cross his desk.

Then again, I doubt he'd bother with something like Fast and Furious to try to get his way, and he seems less likely to just go full imperial and deem gun control into place.

Though, really, I link for the scarier stuff at the end about lefties swooning over the idea of data-mining to determine who is a "danger" and having the police respond.

"Er… doesn’t that feel a little too Minority Report for comfort? Yes, we always want to prevent horrors like the one we saw in Colorado last week, but in the United States, people are innocent until they’re proven guilty. There are countless divorces, firings, and investment failures every day in America, but are you going to preemptively deny someone their Second-Amendment rights before they’ve committed a crime?"

To ask the question, answers it.

These guys don't care about limits on government power. The have just as much contempt for the First amendment as the Second. As this example of Dem mayors banning companies owned by people that have political views they don't like. proves

Even if the government may deny permits to people based on various reasons, it may not deny permits to people based on their exercise of his First Amendment rights. It doesn’t matter if the applicant expresses speech that doesn’t share the government officials’ values, or even the values of the majority of local citizens. It doesn’t matter if the applicant’s speech is seen as “disrespect[ful]” of certain groups. The First Amendment generally protects people’s rights to express such views without worrying that the government will deny them business permits as a result. That’s basic First Amendment law — but Alderman Moreno, Mayor Menino, and, apparently, Mayor Emanuel (if his statement is quoted in context), seem to either not know or not care about the law.

To be fair some opponents of same sex marriage Mayor Emanuel will grandly welcome into the city in the hopes of taking their counsel on how to make the streets safer. People like noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

Moral consistency? What's that?

Obama's next pivot, this time he's going after your guns

Here it is.

Well nice to see that Obama decided that the madness of Baron Bloomberg is wroth emulating.

Obama threw his weight behind measures to strengthen background checks at gun shows and other efforts to keep weapons out of the hands of mentally-ill people.

“These steps shouldn’t be controversial, they should be common sense,” Obama said during the National Urban League conference. …

“But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldier and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities,” he added. …

“There’s talk of new reforms. There’s talk of legislation. And too often those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere. But what I said in the wake of Tucson is we’re going to stay on this persistently.”

Well there you go: common sense, belong on the battlefield, most real gun owners support gun control, gun show loophole, and of course the bit one, confusing fully automatic guns with semi-automatic.

You see, the AK-47 on the "battlefield" he's so fearful of, is already subject to universal federal registration, background checks, and tracking. It's also in a registry that has been closed since 1986. What more does he want? Also recall that in neither Tuscon nor Aurora was an AK-47 or even an automatic rifle used.

*golf claps*

Via Erin Palette in chat and PA Gun Blog.


I'll end with Roberta X

Like a moth to a flame, a Chicago Democrat is drawn to gun control. Sebastian's got the round-up. Here's the money quote from President Obama: "...AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities."

Yes, that's what he said -- and you'll note he leave no room at all for the honest gun-owner, nor bothers with the distinction between a fully-automatic AK-47 (which takes a $200 tax stamp and Federal paperwork, above and beyond the stunning price the limited supply commands) and a one-round-per-trigger-press semi-auto tomato stake from Ed's Bait and Boomsticks. Nope, in his world they're all eeeeviiiiil and if you have one and you're not a soldier, you must be a crook.

Thanks for motivating the gunnie base, Mr. President -- though I'm pretty sure that wasn't your intention.

I think Obama's trying to rally someone anyone in his base and/or he feels Romney is neutered on this.

Way to go champ.

Sean has the video and notes:

It isn’t. “AK’s belong on battlefields and not on the streets of our cities.” He is calling for a new “Assault Weapons” ban. We don’t have full auto AKs sold to regular citizens, so he can’t claim he was talking about them. He’s flat-out saying we should ban private ownership of semi-auto box fed rifles that some people find scary looking.

This is arrogant AND stupid. He’s stupid enough that he doesn’t think we will know what he’s saying and he’s arrogant enough to believe that we’ll go along with it.