I wish I could say Elliot Fineman has some sort of redeeming qualities, but as many have told me, the guy may be rich but he is whacked out of his mind. He does not care what he does or say as long as guns get banned.

Example, this post:
The obvious message is that the killer had a gun and shot it out with the Deputy and killed him. Or is it?

Danny Hammond, was being monitored by Aitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Sandberg at the request of St. Cloud Hospital, where he was being treated, when a “struggle” broke out at about 5:15 a.m. (6:15 a.m. ET), said Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans.
Hammond grabbed Sandberg’s gun during the struggle and shot him, Evans said

Source: Sheriff’s Deputy Fatally Shot by Suspect Being Treated at Minnesota Hospital – NBC News

So it was not the secret winged cabal that the NRA has operating from the basement of his Virginia Headquarters that goes out a night and puts loaded guns under the pillows of domestic abusers after they knocked out the teeth out of their spouses that got the deputy killed but a rare event where a desperate or crazy criminal goes after the LEO’s gun and kills him with it.

But what is really indicative is the comments of Elliot’s followers. It seems that the simple act of clicking on the link and actually reading the not very long article is beyond their ability.

I swear Pavlov would have so much fun observing Social Media. And he would leave the dogs alone.

Hat tip to Scott W. for the find.

Dear J. Kb.

You want to carry your snubbie? God Bless you and fair winds. No reloads?  We are going to disagree on that one.

Till recently I carried a .357 Rossi snub and two extra Bianchi Comp II speedloaders. I know, big suckers but when your fine motor skills are gone and your hands are one step from ogre, you need all the help for reloading. So I am not allergic to Snubbies, in fact I want to buy a couple more to have as emergency reach guns around the house. I believe they are great guns to hide just anywhere… and no, I don’t carry around the house as gym shorts tend to fall off with the weight of the guns.

I carried the snub in a holster at 3 O’Clock and I felt protected knowing that the tradition of the .357, 125 grains in hollow point would deliver…if I hit where I am supposed to hit. I do realize I am not the most cool guy with a gun, might miss the sweet spot on an attacker so I rather fail to the humble side and figure I might need extra BBs. Bad guys also move when you are shooting at them. Lately I switched to a Khar CW9 with CorBon’s Pow’RBall and two spare mags. I carry it in a Sibari Hun Side Bag that my wife abandoned when she found more stylish options for her. Why? Health issues and a bad back forced me to give up anything around the waist except my own roundness.

You say that the average defensive shooting is over after only 2 rounds fired and that is true, but I live in Miami and it was not that long ago that a cop put two rounds of .40 S&W on a guy that was eating a homeless man’s face, but the bath-salt-infused guy kept chomping away like nothing had happened. The officer had to get close and put one in the brain pan to finally end the “meal.” Besides the bath salts, we are having issues with a new version called “flakka” which seems to be making people even more stupider and dangerous. So, just for the non-average event, I want to have as much advantage as I can summons because I know I am going to be the poor bastard that is gonna end up with the “He needed six shots and only brought five” scenario.

I like having eight right out of the holster and seven more close by.

Again, I am just being contrary….. because I can 😀

Following the Charleston Church Shooting, the State of Virginia, in a move championed by the governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, has revoked the Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates it once issued.  Virginia drivers who had them, were required to send them back in.  Approximately 1,600 Confederate plates had been issued, and a whopping 187 have been returned.

These are licence plates.  License.  Plates.  And only 1,600 of them, all in one state.

Just how well do you think a mandatory, nation wide, gun buyback would work?

UPDATE:

Two commenters brought up the 10% compliance rate observed in NY and CT following their gun bans/registrations.

I thought about that a little and decided up update this post.  There is a difference between guns and licence plates regarding this issue.  You only have as many licence plates as you do cars (let’s leave out motorcycles, etc.).  Most families in America have 2 cars (the average is 2.3 cars per household).  Let’s assume when it comes to specialty vanity plates, there is only one per household, so the 1,600 issued plates equates to 1,600 separate households.  If 10% of people comply, that’s gets about 160 plates.  The actual number was 187 so about 12%.

Guns are different.  There are many people who own just one gun.  There are many more who own between “a few” and “so many they’ve lost count.”  At last count, in 2009, the govt estimated there were 310 MILLION guns in the US.  Better estimates put the number at, at least 350 MILLION spread out over 120 million people.

By straight numbers, 10% compliance assumes that some 35 million guns will be turned in.  I doubt it will be that high.  I’d guess closer to 10 million.  The 10% of people who turn them in would most likely be the single gun owner.  The target shooter with one .22 rifle or the casual (Fudd) hunter with one deer rifle.  The “gun nuts” with multiple guns, I believe are much less likely to comply.  Maybe 10% of people will comply, but that won’t translate to a 10% reduction in guns.

Dear Gun Show Armchair Commando,

I fully accept that my choosing to carry a 5 shot, snub nose, .38 special is taking my life into my own hands.  You are absolutely right, I might as well be unarmed carrying such an under powered gun.  Even my choice of ammo, the Winchester 110 gr +P+ treasury load, doesn’t hold up to snuff.  Not to mention that the average defensive shooting is over after only 2 rounds fired.  Since I can’t practically reload or manipulate a snubby one handed by racking it on my belt, I might as well just commit suicide as try to defend myself with it if I every have to draw my gun.  (On a side note, since I can’t actually see your belt under your gut, can you rack your gun on your belt?  Like, is that a physical possibility with you?)

I really should heed your advice.  I need to start carrying a full size 9mm with a +2 base pad IWB along with two reloads.  That, that might be a little heavy or bulky to carry concealed, is irrelevant.  See, I guess that if I was anticipating getting into a two-reload running gun battle, I’d be carrying a rifle.  Not that I anticipate getting into a two-reload running gun battle at all.

Five rounds is not nearly enough to defend myself against a gang of three to six rapists.  In unlikely event that I am attacked by multiple assailants, I believe that basic psychology would save me.  Evidence shows that most criminals are cowards who like easy victims.  I figure that after I shoot the first one, the rest would scatter.  This is entirely speculation, but I’d think it would be really difficult to rape somebody while hemorrhaging internally.

I really did think my quip “if 5 rounds of .38 was enough for Joe Friday, it’s enough for me” would make you laugh.  But I can see how joking about self defense means that “I guess [I] don’t take my life seriously.”

I like carrying a snubby.  It’s light, compact, and easy to carry.  I still carry in a fanny pack like a dork half the time, just because it’s so easy.  I appreciate that you are only looking out for my safety.  I’m just not that tactical.  Sorry.  I think I’ll be alright.

This is not a gun post.  It is a political post.  Since I am only a guest here, if Miguel wants to take it down I will not be offended.  This opinion is entirely my own and is something that I have wanted to share for a while.  In preparing posts for this blog, I have to slough through a lot of idiocy at places like Salon and Vox to bring you nuggets worth posting about.  It is much like having to go through sewage to find peanuts.  Then I sat down to watch the Democratic Primary Debate on DVR.  I not sure that these people know which country they want to run for president in.  Listening to their plans on guns and economics, they want to be the supreme leaders of Swedestralia.

I’d like to retort to them and Vox and everybody else on that side of the aisle, why they are wrong, WITH SCIENCE.  I’m not an economist.  I’m a scientist, degreed and all.

The second law of thermodynamics states nicely defined this way: “it simply says that if you have a system that is isolated, any natural process in that system progresses in the direction of increasing disorder, or entropy, of the system.”

This often gets shortened to “everything tends towards disorder.”  This is not correct.  The best way I have found to sum up the 2nd LoT is “if you don’t continue to put energy into a system, it will eventually fall apart.”

You see this in everything.  It takes energy in the form of heat to take iron oxide and turn it into iron, then more heat to turn it into steel.  It takes mechanical energy to roll that steel into girders and then more heat to weld it together.  When you are done expending all that energy, you made a bridge, and object that exists to fight gravity.  But there is still more energy that has to go into it in maintenance and galvanic protection, because nature is constantly attacking the steel.  If you didn’t continue to add energy into the system, the bridge would corrode back into iron oxide and fall down and go back to the lowest energy state from whence it came.  The 2nd LoT applies to life as well.  If you didn’t consume chemical energy and resperate oxygen, you to would go back to your lowest energy state – dead and rotted away.

The ulitmate point is that the 2nd LoT applies to civilization as well.  Each and every one of us.  We either put in energy to maintain civilization or civilization crumbles.  Electrical energy is measured in Watts, mechanical energy in Joules.  Societal energy is measured in money.  Electrical energy is transferred by electrons through wires.  Societal energy is transferred by dollars through free exchange.  For the most part, the more you contribute in terms of energy to maintaining society, the more money you make.  I mean make.  Just as the biggest generator produces the most power, so do the hardest workers produce the most money.

This assumes that you live in a society with economic freedom.

If you don’t, the 2nd LoT still applies.  The leaders take the money and keep if for themselves.  The hard working stop working.  Society collapses, see the USSR, Venezuela, etc.  You can’t cheat the 2nd LoT.  You can’t steal energy from the Carnot Cycle, perpetual motion is impossible.

Every bit of social welfare, the free stuff that the Democratic primary candidates wanted to promise away is an attempt to cheat the 2nd LoT.  An an conditioner doesn’t make air colder.  It only moves the heat of the air from inside the house to outside.  Free government stuff doesn’t create money, it only moves it from one place to another.  And just like the AC, there is inefficiently in the system.

Now I am not a heartless person.  I have compassion.  I also don’t want to live in a society where the poor starve to death and die in the street.  I accept a certain amount of social welfare to help those in need.  But what we are taking about here is a system that shifts the majority of people to the low curve of the Carnot Cycle, where the majority of people are on the energy consuming side than the energy producing side.    It is not sustainable.  You can speechify about all your highfalutin education on Keynesian economics but YOU CAN’T CHEAT THE 2ND LoT.  If you take half my energy to build up someone else, that is less energy I have to maintain my life, and consequently I will crumble.

I think Robert A. Heinlein put it best:

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as ‘bad luck.'”

A sacrificial anode an an active metal that is coupled to a less active metal and allowed to corrode to prevent the less active metal from corroding.  I WILL NOT BE THE SACRIFICIAL ANODE YOU PROMISE TO THE LESS ACTIVE TO GET THEM TO VOTE FOR YOU.

The runaway winner of my most recent online poll for best tweet of the week was this mock dialogue posted to Twitter by @TheNardvark:

“Can I get two boxes of Sudafed?”
“Sorry, by law you can only buy one at a time.”
“OK then, just the one box of Sudafed and these seven guns.”

The analogy between pseudoephedrine — the active ingredient in Sudafed and many other decongestant cold and allergy medications — and firearms is wry but apt.

Source: Controlling arguments: Sudafed control vs. gun control – Chicago Tribune

I seriously need to do a ride-along with a reporter and figure out how is it possible they can’t do a simple Google search or use two second worth of common sense.

How is it that Eric Zorn has not figured out one simple yet big difference between buying Sudafed and a gun at their respective stores? Felons can legally buy Sudafed but are not allowed by law to buy a firearm. Dear God, Felons are not even allowed to be near a frigging gun or ammunition!

But that is what happens when you do “journalism” based on Press Releases from Gun Control groups.

And next;

I believe that being shot should be requirement for gun ownership in America. It’s very simple. You need to have gun, like taking selfies with pistols, can’t live with out it? Then take a bullet and you will be granted the right to purchase the firearm of your choice.

Source: Want a gun? Take a bullet: Take this, gutless NRA cowards — you can have a gun, once you understand the pain of being shot – Salon.com

Dear D. Watkins: If you happen to have a fire extinguisher, I wanna see your self-inflicted burn scars. Otherwise, stop talking nonsense out of your rectal exit.

PS: You can’t have sex unless you pass a bowling ball through the above-mentioned rectal exit. A man should not be allowed to have carnal knowledge with a woman until he experiences the pain of childbirth… without epidural.

Hat Tip on this one goes to Brad Torgersen via Facebook.

I swear I did not know the drought in California went so…deep.

I think even the animal is surprised at the headline.

Hat Tip to Russell S.