Cert granted in McDonald v. City of Chicago

I'm certainly not the first to report it, but the Supreme Court has decided to take the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. The canonical link for news about the case is probably this one.

I've made a donation to the Second Amendment Foundation in honor of the occasion.

What Whoopi said

You know, it's not the "It wasn't rape-rape" comment that bothers me. It's that she goes on to rationalize that other societies don't see things the same way we do, the implication being that it would be okay for him to drug and rape a 13-year-old girl in other societies. Even worse, the subtext being that those societies are better than ours.

Yes, Whoopi, and in some societies "female circumcision" is considered perfectly normal. And in some societies, it's a well-known cure for AIDS to rape a young virgin. Since you're so concerned about people with AIDS, why don't you suggest that they all go rape young virgins. It certainly wouldn't be a horrible violation of these young girls, 'cause other societies don't see things the same way we do.

More illegal daycares and ignorance of the law

Of course, this is the kind of thing I'd expect in England.

The thing that gets me is about the article is this quote:

“I was just shocked – I thought they were a bit confused about the arrangement between us. So I invited her in and told her situation – the arrangement between Lucy and I – and I was shocked when she told me I was breaking the law.”

I used to have some respect for that phrase, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." Cases like this one, however, make it impossible to hold to that philosophy. "I didn't know it was wrong to steal a car," is one thing. "I didn't know it was legal to watch my neighbor's kid for an hour and 59 minutes but not for two solid hours," is another thing entirely.

Which reminds me of the other illegal daycare ring my mother and a number of other women ran. One of the group of five or so women would give up a day every so often to watch the whole group of kids, and the others would get the day off. Of course, they just considered it to be something of a babysitting co-op. Hell, if they did it now, they'd probably get hit with RICO charges.

Iron sights vs. scopes

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to do some shooting (because I was already taking the day off for other reasons.) I decided to take my other 10/22 out. This is the one I put a scope on. I'd had it out to sight in the scope, but I hadn't had it out since installing a Power Custom hammer/sear combination. Also, since one of the reasons in building a scoped 10/22 was to see how it compares to iron sights (Tech Sights, specifically), and since I've mostly been shooting the iron-sighted one, I wanted to see how I'd do with a scope.

My shooting was pretty bad. I'm sure this is mostly because I've been focusing on the iron sights, but I just couldn't seem to get good shots with the scope. Shooting benchrest, sure, I was doing fine. Standing, though, it seemed like I was far less steady with the scope than with iron sights. This may have been purely psychological, though, because I could see the target much better, and that may have changed my expectations on how well I should have been able to shoot. And, of course, it was hardly a scientific comparison. I wasn't shooting at the same time of day, this was the first time shooting standing with this rifle, etc.

Good shooting

I found out this week that my source of information about the NRA marksmanship qualification for light rifle was outdated. The target that's meant to be used is actually the A-17 target, not the A-32 target. The A-17 target has a bullseye about half the diameter of the bull on the A-32 target. Those 80's I'd been shooting on the A-32 essentially translated into 40's on the A-17. It's comforting to know that this wasn't going to be as easy as I'd thought. And seeing that it's a good bit harder means that I'll have some hard work in front of me, and hard work is good for the soul.

So, given that, I started shooting using the A-17 target this weekend. Well, I'd been shooting using this target for a couple of months, but not for this marksmanship qualification thing, just for my own edification. Saturday morning's shooting wasn't too bad. Aiming to break 40, I shot 40, 52, 35 (ouch), 53, 60, and 55. It was nice to see that I could break 50, and I was ecstatic about the 60. Sunday morning was even better. Aiming for 50 and above, I shot 56, 64, 50, 50, 62, 82. I was pretty frigging ecstatic about the 82, especially as I had two 10's on my last bull. It give me hope that, once I can get the focus down, I'll be able to shoot 80's consistently.
I went to the range both mornings this weekend, as usual.

My mother ran an illegal daycare

I remember the kids of a neighbor coming over to our house to wait for the bus because their parents had to leave earlier than that to get to work on time. I don't remember my mother getting in trouble for it.

Apparently, if I were to do the same now, I'd be running an illegal day care facility. Gotta love that nanny state.

Libertarian vs. socialist

A few months before starting this blog, I started writing this email to someone. It has remained in my drafts folder, unsent, so I figured I'd just post it here. I was reminded of this today when I read the following quote here:

One difference between libertarianism and socialism is that a socialist society can’t tolerate groups of people practicing freedom, but a libertarian society can comfortably allow people to choose voluntary socialism.

What I'd written was the following:

I know what's right, and you know what's right. We don't think we know what's right, we are absolutely certain. That our philosophies are diametrically opposed is irrelevant, we each know what is right. The difference is that my philosophy is moral because I will not force you to conform to it.

I want you to keep more/all of your money. You want to take more/all of my money. The difference between my philosophy and your philosophy is the use of force. If you don't want to do what I want you to do, if you don't want to keep more of your money, I'm not going to force you to do so. I'm not going to prevent you from giving all of your money to charity. I'm not going to force you to spend your money on frivolous things or even force you to save and invest your money. I'm not going to force you to do anything.

But in your philosophy, if I don't want to do what you want, if I want to keep my money rather than give it to you, you will not grant me the same consideration. You won't refrain from using force to take my money. You will use coercion and legal means to take my money and, if it comes down to it, you will send people with guns to take my property. I will have no say in the matter. I won't even have the choice to freely give my money because you will already have taken it.

Comparison

Some tens or hundreds of thousands of protesters descend on DC to protest the federal government's fiscal policies. Nary a window broken.

A number of protesters orders of magnitude smaller descend on Pittsburgh to protest capitalism at the G-20 summit. Many windows broken.

'Nuff said.

Slow news day

I have a friend who was in English major in college. He tells the anecdote of the first day of a writing class he took. "How many of you want to be writers?", asked the professor. Most of the students in the class raised their hands. "How many of you write every day?" Nobody in the class raised a hand. "Well, good luck with that," he said.

Which comes back to the first rule of blogging: write every day. Even though I've managed to do a fairly decent job of that so far, it's getting to be a challenge. While I'm reasonable politically active, I don't have the time that Sebastian and Bitter have to devote to this. And I'm certainly not as eloquent as Marko. (Being that he's a writer and I'm a computer guy, I could be considered to have a bit of a handicap.)

I was also brought up Southern Baptist. I had modesty beaten into me as a child. (Figuratively speaking, that is.) I've internalized that well enough that I find it difficult speaking up, even in those instances where I need to do so. Even though a blog affords me anonymity (pseudonymity?), it's still a form of publishing, so there's a slight chance someone will read this, so modesty tends to act as an inhibitor on writing.

But, then, sitting on a stopped train waiting to see if I'll get home at a reasonable hour certainly does afford me the time to write.

On the internet...

nobody knows you're a rabble-rousing former governor of Virginia.

Last night, I looked at the Wikipedia entry for my namesake (pseudo-namesake? pseudonym-sake?), and I discovered a number of interesting coincidences.

First off was the one that was so blatantly obvious that I never thought about it. I grew up in Kingsport, TN, where the original Fort Patrick Henry was located and current site of the Fort Patrick Henry Dam. The dam is just off Fort Henry Drive, which leads to the Fort Henry Mall, where I spent some amount of time as a teenager.

Beyond that, I discovered that Patrick Henry was instrumental in founding Hampden-Sydney College, which was one of my choices for college. Emory & Henry College was another choice, and was named in his honor.

Oh, yeah, and there was also the stuff about being strongly in favor of the Bill of Rights and worrying that the presidency could eventually become the equivalent of a monarchy.

Physical fitness

I've never been the most athletic person, but there've been periods in my life when I've been reasonably so. I ran in my teens, including track and cross country in school and road races. In my early 20's, I was into competitive cycling. My natural state is at rest, however, and inertia tends to keep me there. My computer geek lifestyle doesn't help much at being active, and having three small children and a long commute doesn't leave me much free time for exercise.

I do try to fit exercise in where I can, though. I've discovered that if I take the 20-minute walk from the train station to a subway station which leaves with me a zero-connection ride to my building, I don't get there any later than if I'm lazy and take the three-connection subway trip that involves no significant walking. And while walking up 14 flights of stairs once I get there does take longer than the equivalent elevator ride, it certainly got easier after I'd done it a few times.

I've recently gotten on a strength kick, too. I started out with a few push-ups, and I spent $20 on a pull-up bar that I've been using. My goals were simple -- just get to the point of doing 50 push-ups and 10 pull-ups a day. This would let me do a minimal amount of weight-bearing exercise without having to commit a lot of time to it. This is basically how I've been doing stretching exercises for the last couple of years -- just a few minutes of hamstring and quad stretching before my shower. (And now I'm actually more limber than I've been since I was 14 -- I can actually put my palms on the floor straight-legged.)

But, being the ever-so-slightly compulsive type that I am, I haven't been content to leave it at the minimal push-ups and pull-ups. It's now morphed into half-an-hour to an hour of push-ups, pull-ups, air squats, three different types of flys and three different types of curls, broken up across two nights so that the different muscle groups get rest. I'm sure this won't last, but by the time my enthusiasm peters out, I should be able to do my push-ups and pull-ups as reasonable maintenance.

Being a new blogger

I love being a new blogger. I can write whatever I want in full confidence that absolutely noone is reading what I write. BUWAHAHAHAHA!

The socialized medicine game

Whenever someone comments that socialized medicine isn't so bad, I want to suggest this game to them:

Let's you and I go down to the local hospital. I'll take a checkbook, and you take a loaded gun. We'll pick out someone with an outstanding balance on their account. If I don't write out a check to pay this person's medical bills, you put the gun to my head and pull the trigger.

Obviously, I've been affected a lot by Atlas Shrugged. Or we could do the Godfather version:

Let's you and I go down to the hospital. I'll take a checkbook, and we'll pick out someone with an outstanding balance on their account. If I don't write out a check to pay this person's medical bills, you wait until I go home and go to bed and then put a horse's head under the covers for me to find when I wake up.

Vultures

A week ago, I saw one of these do a close fly-by. I cursed myself for not having a camera ready when my wife pointed out that another had landed and was sitting on our roof. I ran inside to get the camera and snapped a couple of pictures. Obviously a vulture of some sort. I want to say turkey vulture, but I'm not positive. Very big and actually very beautiful in flight.

Playing Sergeant York

Sergeant York is one of my favorite movies. It happened to be on TV one Saturday morning recently as I was flipping around, so I left it there for a bit. My 5-year-old son watched most of it (while simultaneously playing with Legos.) I have it on DVD, so I popped it in about a week later and let him watch it again.

Of course, his favorite parts of the movie are the fighting parts, but he also watched most of the rest of it, including the shooting match. A week or so later, we were playing in the back yard. I wasn't focusing on him, so it took a few minutes before I realized what he was doing. He was standing behind a tree poking a long stick out and making gobbling sounds.

I'm really looking forward to introducing him to shooting.

Misanthropic

The long-time girlfriend of a friend of mine considers herself to be fairly misanthropic. She pretty much considers people in general to be complete idiots. She rails at the idiocy of people when affected by events such as traffic on the non-accident side of the highway being slowed down by people wanting to take a gander at the accident.

My friend and I consider ourselves to have achieved a level of misanthropy beyond that. We realize that people are stupid in the aggregate and are well aware that such things are going to befall us. When they happen, we don't rail against them. There's no more point in getting angry at the stupidity of other people as there is in cursing the rain.

Wednesday night shooting

Being that I'll be unable to go shooting during my usual slot Saturday morning, I went shooting Wednesday evening. One of the joys of shooting at 7AM Saturday and Sunday mornings is that I'm the only fool, er, um, uh, dedicated shooter in the building. On a Wednesday evening at 7PM, though, I'm never alone. Not that it's crowded, but there's always at least one other person there.

This past Wednesday evening, it was someone I'd seen there once before. He worked at the university a few minutes away for many years and acted as the coach of the shooting team there. (Given that this is a liberal Northeastern university, I was a bit surprised that they allowed a shooting team, but maybe they slipped under the radar. It probably helps that they don't shoot on university property.)

Given that he seems to be pretty serious about his shooting, I try to be a little bit more polite than usual -- no sudden movements and no noise while he's shooting so I won't disturb his concentration. Maybe this concentration on being polite was what had me otherwise so distracted. My shooting was all over the place. I shot well when I managed to maintain my focus, but I wasn't doing a good job of it. On the light rifle target, I managed to drop two shots down to the 6 ring. This dropped the total to a 76. Guh.

Cute twin tricks

Imagine this: 3-year-old identical twin girls playing on an exercise bicycle, each standing on one of the pedals, working in coordination to make the pedals go around. And as they're doing this, I just see their heads alternating up and down.

Kids and guns

When do I introduce my currently-5-year-old son to shooting? Were I still living in Tennessee, I'd probably already have done so. As it is, I live in a fairly liberal part of New Jersey, so I'm a bit hesitant to do so. My hesitation stems mostly from the fact that I know he's going to talk about it at school (kindergarten.) For one, I don't really want to deal with the whole "gun nigger" thing, but I'm also a very private person. Nobody needs to know what I do with my time unless I care to tell them.

Add to this that my wife has opinions about it. She's actually very supportive of having guns and is a pretty good shot herself. But she's also a little over-protective of the kids, and guns don't play well into that. (Although I'd argue that learning how to handle dangerous things safely is an important aspect of safety.)

I haven't actually had the conversation with my wife recently, or at least not since I've been thinking of doing it sooner than later. I need to have that conversation soon. Especially since my son's been getting very curious about what's in the long black cases I put in the car and disappear with occasionally.

Kids, pediatricians, and guns

My 5-year-old son had a doctor's appointment the other day. As part of the appointment, my wife was asked to fill out a safety questionnaire. As I wasn't there, I'm a bit unclear on whether this was mandatory. Among the questions about taking safety precautions like putting life vests on our children while canoeing was the question of whether there were guns in the home. My wife simply lied on the form and marked "No". Her attitude was that the police are the only ones who need to know that, and they already do. (To which my response was, "No, they don't!" But I live in New Jersey, so it's unavoidable.)

I'd seen references to people getting questionnaires like this elsewhere, but I was unprepared for it to happen to us. Had I received this questionnaire in my unprepared state, my response would likely have been, "None of this is any of your f***ing business!" Had I had some time to think about it, and had I been the one given this questionnaire, I likely would have responded in a better fashion: "Oh, how interesting! Given that this is intended to educate parents about safety for their children, do you have any material I could read to better understand how to keep my children safe?"

The tragic and the criminal

In an earlier post, I wrote about two opposing views of the nature of man. (Well, okay, I talked about someone talking about someone else writing about it. But you get the idea.)

Another dichotomy I've noticed is one of the differences between (modern) liberals and conservatives. Liberals want to eliminate the tragic. Conservatives want to eliminate the criminal. (And yes, I'm painting with a broad brush here.)

Health care coverage is an excellent example of this. It's tragic that, in this country, there are people who don't have adequate health care coverage. Liberals aim for 100% coverage in the hopes of eliminating tragedies. Conservatives are against any government-run health care coverage because they consider it criminal to steal money from some to pay for the health care of others. Similarly, they're against treating health care as a right, because they consider it criminal to enslave doctors in the service of others.

Gun control is another example. It's tragic when some teenager gets killed, even if that teenager was in the midst of committing a crime. It's entirely possible that said teenager, once out of jail, might have reformed himself and become a shining example of a productive member of society. Liberals want to avoid tragedies such as these by getting rid of all guns. On the other hand, if said teenager had killed his victim in the commission of his crime, that would have been criminal. Conservatives want to eliminate criminal acts such as these by guaranteeing that the innocent have the right to defend themselves.

For me the basic difference between the tragic and the criminal is intent. It's tragic when a child develops cancer and dies, but the cancer was not the malicious intent of another individual. It's criminal when someone puts a gun to that child's head and pulls the trigger, as the act is the malicious intent of another.

All this ACORN stuff

Yesterday at work, the conversation was focused on all this ACORN stuff. I wasn't the one bringing it up, even though I was fairly on top of things. It was my Russian friend who was doing most of the talking.

One of the interesting things about the conversation was that nobody else had any clue that there was a story there. Apparently, the mainstream media is doing its job well.

Stupid human attitudes

Tam (although I feel uncomfortable referring to her as such, given that I don't know her) links to this article about the uproar over schoolchildren deciding to sell the lamb they raised to be turned into food.

My first response to this is: Mmmmmmmm, lamb.

There are so many other responses to this. First off, this is what people do with lambs, they send them off to be slaughtered. The only difference between this lamb and any other is that this one received publicity. It has a name, so it's a horrible thing to kill it. (As an aside, this is why some cultures don't name a child for the first week or so. It's psychological protection against infant mortality.)

But apparently there are people who are concerned about the "emotional impact" the death of the lamb will have on the children. This is one of those things that happens to living things. They die. I don't see the need to protect children from this. Better they get introduced to it via the death of an animal rather than the death of a human.

This reminds me of a recent incident near where I live. Last winter, a woman was out walking her grandchild's dog. Apparently, the dog got loose and wandered onto the surface of a frozen pond. The woman went out on the ice to save the dog. She broke through the ice and drowned. The dog eventually walked off the ice unharmed.

This was a tragedy. People in the community, however, were labeling this woman a hero for attempting to save the life of the dog. To me it seems that these people value the life of the dog higher than the life of the woman. And my question is, that night when the grandchild went to bed, who do you think he would have missed more, his dog or his grandmother?

The perfectable man

I've become a real fan of Bill Whittle, especially after his response to Jon Stewart's comment that Truman should be considered a war criminal for dropping the bomb.

He has a new segment out. This one is a little drier, but still very interesting. It's a bit of a history/philosophy lesson, for those who aren't familiar with the history and/or philosophy. (He's presenting ideas discussed by Thomas Sowell in A Conflict of Visions.)

In a nutshell, there are two visions of man. One is that man is flawed but perfectable. With enough work, man can transform himself into something better than what he is now. The other vision is that man is flawed, but he's going to stay that way. All of the baseness that seems to be inherent in man is, well, inherent in man.

What's ironic about these two views is that the former, while superficially a better philosophy as it offers an optimistic view of mankind, has led to far more violence than the latter. Some 100 million people were killed in the 20th century alone in Soviet Russia, communist China, and elsewhere, in the name of creating a better man.

The founders of the United States, on the other hand, held the latter view. They recognized that man was inherently flawed and made no attempt to set up a government dedicated to perfecting him. And as yet, we've not needed to slaughter millions of our own citizens to defend that view.

Flip-flops

No, not these flip-flops. The kind people wear on their feet.

I work in New York. I'm constantly amazed by the number of people I see wearing flip-flops. Mostly women, but a fair number of men. It astounds me because all I can imagine is a bit of broken glass flipping up under the foot and being stepped on. I've also seen flip-flopped feet at the end of the day. The streets aren't very clean.

But the sandals also remind me of this piece.

Domestic violence

In the early 90's, I was in my first job out of school. I became friends with a woman there whose marriage went south while I knew here. She knew her husband had been an alcoholic, but he wasn't drinking when she married him. Apparently, he started drinking again sometime after they got married. He was also a bit unstable. She must have mentioned her unhappiness with the situation to him, but his response was, "If you ever leave me, I'll kill you."

One day, this woman arrived home from work to find their dog, a German shepherd, lying on the floor of the garage. The husband had taken a knife and repeated stabbed the dog, apparently leaving the dog for dead. When she asked him why he'd done this, his response was, "The dog jumped the fence."

She got a restraining order, and the police escorted her husband out of the house. I'm glad I can say this didn't turn into an article in the local newspaper. He stayed away from here, and they eventually got a divorce. Not that this was by any means a happy ending, as she had two small children at the time, but certainly better than a tragic ending.

2 million

Wow, up to 2 million. I was hoping it would break 100,000. And even though the 2 million number may be an overestimate, it's almost certain to have broken 1 million.

Damning with faint praise

Headline: "Thousands march to US Capitol to protest spending".

At least the text is a little better: "Tens of thousands of people marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday..."

But then later: "The line of protesters spread across Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks, all the way to the capitol."

It was too big not to report on it, but obviously they didn't have to do it well.

Morning shooting

On the weekends, my wife and I split the child-care duties. I typically get the morning off, and she gets the afternoon off. I work my shooting into this schedule by going at 7 AM both mornings.

I went this morning, got ready, put up a 50 foot target, take a deep breath and take my first shot. A perfect 10. (On the 50-foot smallbore target, the 10 ring is really close to .22 inches.) Wow! I'm an excellent shot! My second shot hits at 5:00 outside the 5 ring. Oh, well. Need to work on the consistency. And need to maintain expectations.

On the whole, not too bad. I'm starting to get more shots inside the 9 ring, which makes me happy. On my practice A-32 target (the target for NRA light rifle, which I'm getting into this fall), I shot an 81. More 9's than last week's 82, but obviously more 7's, too. But still above 80.

This rifle has the Tech Sights sights on it. I've also recently bought a second 10/22 to put a scope on. I mounted the scope this week, and I sighted it in this morning. No off-hand shooting with it, though. I want to replace the trigger first. The factory job is awful.

The new 10/22 has the reasonable magazine release lever, which is nice. Unfortunately, it appears that the magazine will only release if the bolt is locked back. Don't know that I care for that feature.

Huffman's meme

Joe Huffman has a meme that he's expounded upon, that we are essentially gun niggers. This came to mind yesterday while having lunch with a colleague of mine and a couple of friends.

I'm a consultant, currently sitting long-term at a financial services company in New York. Just before going to lunch yesterday, I learned that one of the employees there, someone I'd already grown to like for other reasons, was also from the South. (He's from Louisiana, I'm from Tennessee. He grew up 5-600 miles away from me, but both locations are still the South.)

Over lunch, the topic of hunting (or, more accurarely, eating) squirrel came up. I've never actually done either, but I could at least discuss the subject. After we'd made a few gun-centric comments, one of my northeastern colleagues turned to the other and said, "Don't you feel superior not knowing any of this?"

Applying Huffman's meme, we get this:

"Don't you feel superior not being a nigger?"

Fairly offensive, I'd say. My friend could probably do with some gentle education.

The view from Jersey City eight years ago today

My wife and I were living in Jersey City, NJ, on September 11, 2001. For those who aren't familiar with the geography, Jersey City is directly across the Hudson River from the southern tip of Manhattan. We had an apartment from which you could see the twin towers.

I was already at work that morning, and my wife hadn't yet left our apartment, when the planes hit. I was sitting at my desk in the midtown Manhattan office I worked in when my boss came by saying that his wife had just told him that a plane had flown into one of the towers. He was on his way to the window in the lobby to look. I assumed it was a small private plane and that there wasn't much to see, so I didn't bother to follow him. I only went to look after he came back and told me what he saw.

I don't remember much of the rest of the morning aside from being frustrated that we couldn't get any news on the Web and being in shock. I remember trying to call my wife, but all the lines out of the city were busy. I finally thought to send email to a friend in California who then called my wife to say I was okay.

I do remember going to the window at one point and thinking, "Gee, that's a lot of smoke. I can't even see one of the towers."

My wife started to go to work but thought better of it before getting too far. She walked back to our apartment and grabbed the camera to take pictures.

For reference, this is what we used to see from a small park right on the river:

This picture was taken just as the first tower fell:

This is a picture of the remaining tower while it was still standing:

Tu quoque

I can't believe that a member of the United States Congress had the audacity to vocalize his objections to the President's speech last night. I am shocked, shocked!, that members of Congress feel that this is acceptable behavior.

My proposal

I recently had a friend (an EMT) on Facebook express the following (paraphrased) sentiment: Our current health insurance system is broken. Why not just scrap it and try something completely different?

If we're going to ignore the enumerated powers of Congress and let them legislate something completely different, here's my proposal: Let's draft every medical professional into public service. We can set them up as part of one of the existing branches of the military or possibly create a new branch of the military for this purpose. The reason I would want to do this as part of the military is that doing so allows for penalties for those who would choose to opt out. Simply setting up a new civilian bureaucracy just wouldn't work quite as well. If this were just another government job, choosing to retire early or go into another line of work would be a perfectly natural option. We couldn't really allow that, however, as we would need to be able to provide guarantees of service.

Another benefit of the military option is that it would allow us to keep costs down. As has been noted elsewhere, the average Federal salary is significantly higher than the average private salary. Salaries for doctors-as-civil-servants would likely be fairly high, but salaries for doctors-as-military could be held lower. They certainly wouldn't all be generals. I can't imagine why they shouldn't all be maintained at the level of privates. Paying them as such would help contain costs.

And yes, I know, this is a completely ludicrous suggestion (and not fully developed -- how do you replenish the supply of doctors over time, etc.?) But if we're going to scrap the system we have just for the sake of trying something completely different, then why not try this? It's certainly completely different.

Unconscionable

I can honestly think of no better word than unconscionable to describe what this graph represents (original source):

NRA Light Rifle

My local club is shooting NRA light rifle matches starting in a few weeks. Outside a number of IPSC matches in the mid-90's, I've never participated in any real competition, so this will be my first.

I'm actually interested in shooting high-power rifle (or at least I think I am), but, inspired by Sebastian's comments on subcaliber training, I've been shooting a lot of .22 recently. It's just a stock 10/22 with the only modifications being the Tech Sights aperture sights and a replacement hammer to give it a reasonable trigger pull. (Okay, and the magazine release -- the original is just ridiculous.) I've been using the NRA 50-foot smallbore rifle target, those ten small black circles. I'm a pretty good "natural" shot, so I'm in the black more often than not, but I have quite a bit of work to do to achieve consistency. I'm getting pretty good at calling my shots, too. Which is all the more depressing, of course, when I call the all-too-frequent flyers before checking them out in the scope.

In any case, the shooting itself has been fun and rewarding, especially when I get 5 of 5 shots in the black, which is happening more frequently.

Monday morning when I went to shoot, there were some A-32 targets on the shelf, the target used for light rifle. After my regular shooting, I gave it a try and shot an 82/100. Not too bad, given that I'd never (seriously) shot a rifle standing prior to a couple of months ago. (I'd always preferred hand guns.) And that puts me at "expert" rating, according to this. Assuming, of course, that I can maintain that level of consistency long enough to progress through the lower ratings.

Irony

I find it ironic that, now that I'm living in New Jersey, I'm closer to shooting facilities than I was when I was living in Knoxville, TN (aka KnoxVegas.) I'm literally five minutes away from indoor shooting facilities that I have access to 24/7. In Knoxville, I was about 20 minutes away from an indoor commercial range to which I had access during normal commercial hours.

Vocabulary

My 5.5-year-old son learned a new word today: fart.

We tried to hold off on that one for as long as we could, but he's starting kindergarten tomorrow, so it was probably just a matter of days, anyway.

Independence

A few years ago, I was looking through some of my in-laws' family photos. One picture from the mid '70's included another family. I asked who they were, and got this story from my father-in-law.

At the time, they had some friends, a couple who were both social workers. They were definitely of a more liberal bent than my parents-in-law. They would have political discussions, but the discussions always remained friendly.

One day my father-in-law made a comment about one of his goals being to be completely independent, both financially and otherwise, to not need to rely on anyone else. This couple was horrified. They couldn't imagine why someone would want to be independent. This was a concept that was so foreign to their world-view that it literally scared them. No doubt this fear was the realization that, in a world full of independent people, there would be no need for social workers.

This couple eventually stopped associating with my in-laws, most likely as a result of the clash in world views. Not that my in-laws seem to terribly miss them.

Teamwork

As the father of three small children, I get exposed to a fair amount of kid's television. My wife and I have noticed a disturbing theme running through a lot of these shows. It seems that none of the characters can ever achieve anything independently. Problems are only ever solved when the characters work as a team. Witness the song form the Wonder Pets: "What's gonna work? Teamwork!"

Personally, I want my kids to be independent. While the ability to work as part of a team is useful, the necessity of working as a team is paralyzing. The only person you're guaranteed to have around 100% of the time is yourself. If the SHTF and you're standing there looking for the other members of your team, you're SOL.

(Of course, this desire for independent kids may simply be a result of changing diapers for the last five years. That and eagerly awaiting the day when they can get their own damn breakfast at 6AM on a Saturday morning.)

The right not to get shot

Many months ago, I read an article about a small Philadelphia protest against gun violence. (Unfortunately, the article is no longer available for a link.) The article included a quote from the mayor of Philadelphia in response to a comment about rights: "I have the right not to be shot."

This comment bothers me because, well, he doesn't. This is akin to saying that he has the right not to be rained upon. No, that's not quite right. A more accurate analogy would be to say that he has the right not to get hit in the head with a golf ball. In order to enforce that right at all times, such as when said mayor was taking a stroll on an amazingly well-tended patch of grass, one would have to prevent anyone from ever hitting a golf ball, an activity that's otherwise perfectly legal. Similarly, in order to prevent said mayor from ever getting hit by a bullet, no matter where he may be, one would need to prevent anyone from ever firing a gun.

Of course, as with any analogy, this one breaks down at some point. While golfing is an enjoyable leisure-time activity for some, it's certainly not an activity that could ever be considered crucial to life and limb. There are cases, on the other hand, in which firing a gun might be so. So in order to enforce said mayor's right not to be shot, one would need to condemn others to be victims of violent crimes.

WWRD

Others have linked to this site for its version of a Che Guevara t-shirt.

Personally, I like this one.

Ingenuity

An interesting counterargument-by-anecdote to those who would suggest that we ban all guns.

What most people in favor of banning this, that or the other (drugs, prostitution, etc.) never seem to consider is that these bans are effectively unenforceable, or at least that they would have to go to great lengths in order to enforce them, including effectively eliminating privacy for anyone.

Hmm, this reminds me of a comment I made to someone after having seen The Lives of Others. I was astounded at just what the East German government had been able to achieve using nothing more than ink and paper to record data on citizens. "Just imagine what they'd have been able to do with a modern database and some data mining software", I said. It's frightening to think what they might have achieved. Then again, we might find out soon enough.

Memes

I ran across this one on Facebook, today. I like it:

No one should drink crappy beer because they can't afford good beer. No one should go broke because they are thirsty and need good beer. If you agree please copy and post as your status for the rest of the day.

Names

Even though it may be obvious, I'll state it for the record: The name of this blog is an homage to (or rip-off of, if you will) these two blogs:

The View From North Central Idaho

View From the Porch

On American exceptionalism

A beautiful sunny morning made brighter still by Bill Whittle.

I'd rank this one right up there with his comments on Truman and the bomb.

Snapped

That's it, I've finally snapped. It was this from a friend on Facebook that did it:

No one should die because they cannot afford health care and no one should go broke because they become sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

I've kept pretty quiet so far when things like this pop up, but I've finally snapped. I don't care to remain quiet any more.

My response to the above is the following: Show me which of the powers enumerated in Article I section 8 of the Constitution covers government-run health care. And if your answer is, "the part about providing for the general welfare", then please explain to me why, if the framers of the Constitution wanted to give Congress carte blanche in providing for the general welfare, they went on to enumerate any powers at all?

No less an expert on the Constitution than James Madison himself has this to say:

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and
are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take
the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers
in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public
treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of
children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the
regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing,
from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute
object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were
the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."