Category: RKBA

Income Inequality- Bogus Statistic, Real Issue

May 14, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I was listening to the Reason podcast with Jonathan Rauch was being interviewed about his new book. Of course, I’m going to recommend that you listen to the whole thing. I found it very enlightening about the nature of happiness, particularly for those hitting middle age.

One item that came up during the interview dealt with how most people view income inequality. In my opinion, I’ve always considered income inequality a bullshit metric. Something used to gin up the masses and sell papers and clicks. IMHO, the far more important metric is how are the people doing year over year or over time. It’s not like the economy is a closed system. As long as people’s lives are consistently getting better, then why should it matter if some segments are increasing more than others?

This is not normal human psychology. People tend to base their happiness on how they are doing compared to others. It really is important to keep up with the Jonses. When people don’t think they are improving as fast as the rest of the world, unhappiness abounds. This becomes intensified with all the media streams blaring out conspicuous consumption of the various media whores – I mean, celebrities.

This unhappiness is what unrest is made of. Or at least, one thing that can contribute to a restless population. It also appears to contribute to the rise of populists – on both sides of the traditional political spectrum. Note the rise of Trump and Sanders. Both of them tapped into the unhappiness of the population by promising the people to make their lives better. To either bring the people’s livelihoods up – or bring down those the people think are doing too much better.

I’m not going to pretend that there’s an easy solution. It’s a psychological issue, and nothing about psychology is easy. People are just too fucked up. IMHO, there are some things that should be done. We need to look at economic policies that help increase people’s standards of living. My personal hobby horses are free trade, low taxes, and limited regulations. I don’t see how trying to redistribute wealth by taxing the top earners would help grow the economy and increase standards of living.

Although I still think it’s a bullshit metric, I’m going to take a more careful look into income inequality – but more as a gauge of the populace. This may be one of the leading indicators of a real civil problem. One that might require me to make sure I’ve got enough ammo and storm shutters on my windows.

We Should All Have Security

May 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

At the NRA Annual Meeting, there was a new group of protesters led by actress Alyssa Milano. They don’t want guns in private hands to prevent “gun deaths”. Of course, she has no problem with all guns in private hands, particularly when they’re protecting her.

My issue with these people who demand we give up our weapons is that they can’t connect their need for security with the same need by others. I will be the first to admit that high profile people like actresses and politicians have a need for armed security teams. They face unique threats that I don’t. However, that does not mean I do not face just as lethal threats in my environment.

I want Ms. Milano to be able to have the security she needs to protect her from the threats she faces. I just wish she would understand that I should be able to have the means to protect my life from the threats I face.

Monday Gunday News

May 7, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Springfield Army tells Dick’s to fuck off. And so does the NSSF. It looks like the final straw was Dick’s hiring anti-gun lobbyists. I’m surprised more of the firearms companies haven’t done this, particularly after how Dick’s fucked over Troy after Sandy Hook. Maybe some will follow SA’s lead.

Hillsborough County extends waiting period to five days to do something. Can a waiting period save lives? Maybe for suicides, which to be fair, is the biggest segment of “gun deaths”. For criminals and mass murderers (but I repeat myself), this won’t stop a damn thing. What I find annoying is that a Republican dominated council in a Republican heavy county let this pass without a fight.

NRA insurance banned in New York. The anti-gunners demand we carry liability insurance and then attack any firm that would offer it. That’s a feature, not a bug.

Democratic Congress critter wants to spend $15 billion in paying off gun owners to turn in their Evil Black Rifles And then go after those who didn’t take the bribe. I half-wonder if these politicians make these proposals knowing that they have now choice in passing. Just to virtue signal without having to worry about messy details like coming up with the funding or sending police after gun owners.

NRA Annual Meeting in Dallas:

Trump tried to make gun owners forget his administration is not only not fulfilling the promises made on the campaign trail (cough, national reciprocity, cough), but actively working against us.

A restaurant takes the opportunity to covertly virtue signal.

Gun control crowds smaller than usual. No sign of the Parkland kids or any of the usual heavy hitters.

CDC and Guns

April 23, 2018 / / 0 Comments

One of the big complaints from the gun control side is the restriction on the CDC from researching gun violence. What the law prevents is the CDC from doing research to promote gun control. The reason was simple – we shouldn’t be politicizing something like the CDC.

“But the CDC would be an unbiased source!” Really? Then why would they fail to publish all of the data they collected in the nineties about firearms used in self defense.

Oh look, the data shows that DGUs far outstrip felonious uses. And at the same rate Gary Kleck estimated during the same time period – about 2.5 million uses a year. Other, more recent, studies are showing about 100,000 DGUs annually.

If Congress decides to give into pressure and remove its current restrictions on the CDC for studying gun violence, then it should also mandate that ALL research paid for by public funding be published. Including the raw data sets before a researcher decides to “massage” it with some bizarre statistical tool or another.

Diversity Is A Good Thing, As Long As You Know What To Diversify

April 19, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Reason put out this article earlier this week on the dangers of Silicon Valley’s burgeoning ideological conformity. Let’s look at the first couple of paragraphs:

When it comes to software, Silicon Valley understands the threat of monocultures. If 100 percent of computers run the same code and malware authors discover an exploit, 100 percent of computers will be vulnerable to the same attack. Fortunately, the way to reduce such risks is straightforward: Increase diversity.

Alas, this insight seems limited to software. Technology executives have yet to fully recognize the risks posed by the potent political monocultures forming inside their own companies.

The problem is that so many who push “diversity” fail to understand what they need to diversify. For these tech companies – and other places pushing diversity for diversity (cough, universities, cough, literary circles) – they are mistaking the biological for the mental. In essence, they are saying because they have both golden labradors and chocolate labradors, they are diverse – and they don’t see the problem when large numbers of their dogs die off. For tech companies, the biggest threat from this failure to recognize they are not really diverse is going out of business because they’ve alienated enough customers.

However, the same issue is impacting the RKBA. I keep hearing how we do we get more women, POCs, young people, etc. involved in the gun rights battle. Too many times, I see the RKBA making the same mistake of substituting outward diversity with inward diversity. You can’t invite people with one breath, and with the next demand they immediately conform to every thing you believe outside of RKBA – such as God, abortion, economics, and/or the current issues of the day.

We’re not breeding stronger livestock, so we shouldn’t be looking for biological diversity. We’re trying to breed stronger ideas, so we need ideological diversity.

Wall Street Journal Tries To Look At the Smart Gun Issue

April 18, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The Wall Street Journal decided to examine the smart gun issue. It seems the authors of the piece can’t figure out why no one on in Silicon Valley is willing to fund smart guns, and dismisses the concerns of gun owners and RKBA activists.

For example:

For decades, firearms companies have refused to sell smart guns because of glitches in some early models, as well as a backlash from conservative gun-rights activists, who fear the technology will prompt state legislatures to mandate it broadly. The activists say their fears were confirmed by a 2002 New Jersey law requiring all handguns for sale in the state to have smart-gun technology once it became available. (emphasis mine) Smith & Wesson’s parent company said last month it was still wary of making smart guns.

Excuse me, but this isn’t a case of activists making an unsubstantiated claim. I would call that empirical evidence.

Further, the authors have to pull out that this would stop a highly publicized event:

But in theory, a gun with a fingerprint reader or RFID technology might stop murderers like Adam Lanza who used guns purchased and stored by his mother, and to a greater degree prevent accidental shootings and suicides.

Did they even read how this tech was supposed to work? First, Lanza’s mother took him with her shooting. Are you telling me that an RFID reader or fingerprint scanner would have stopped someone already granted access? About the only one of these claims that has some merit is accidental shootings. My problem is that: 1) the situations prevented are already rare and 2) the lives saved may be outweighed by the number of lives lost because tech failures preventing people from defending themselves. Oh how can you quantify that people would be put in danger by tech failures? How many times has the fingerprint scanner on your phone failed to read in good conditions? How many times have you had to rescan a badge for entrance because the reader was being temperamental?

Here’s my take on the smart gun issue. I’m a geek and I love technology. However, I don’t trust governments not to abuse any advances in smart gun tech to restrict the rights.

BOA ups Citi’s Ante

April 10, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Bank of America stated on Tuesday that they are going to “step away” from firms that make “assault weapons” for non-military users. The bullets from CNBC are vague on exactly what that means, but considering several of the big manufacturers are current BOA, this could mean a nasty shake-up.

The antis have found a rather insidious means to attack us by focusing on access to capital. I don’t doubt they were inspired by Operation Chokepoint. BOA may decide it can afford to lose its corporate and personal accounts from the pro-gun side. Wells Fargo has been holding steady against attacks so far. If they’re smart, WF could recoup a lot of the lost business it suffered from its fake account scandal last year by bringing in former BOA clients.

That’s fine in the short term. I’m concerned about the long term of these tactics. It’s another push to drive the gun community underground and make it seem disreputable.

Now They’re Coming For Preemption

April 2, 2018 / / 0 Comments

According to this article, almost a dozen municipalities are suing to strike down Florida’s preemption law. They assert that it is unconstitutional to allow the governor to remove a local official for violating state law. And it’s too expensive (personally and for the municipality) to pass local laws that violate the preemption.

That’s what we call “kind of the point.”

Real Men Use Whatever Works

March 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

There’s a pic of one sign at the recent march. Since WordPress is being stupid, I’m going to link to Miguel’s post.

This is an attitude that needs to go away. There is not something more honorable or pure about punching someone trying to kill you. There’s nothing honorable about putting yourself into melee range and suffer injuries against someone who wants to take your life.

What’s worse is that this line of thinking splashes over on to women. Look at the self-defense ideas portrayed in the media. As much as you might see it on the screen, a 120 lb. woman is not going to come out on the winning side against a 200 lb. man. Especially a man who is willing to attack a woman.

That’s the point of carrying a gun. It’s a force equalizer. It allows the weaker to fight off the stronger.

I hope that young lady never has to find out by example of the fallacy of her sign. I hope she never has to face someone who wants to hurt and kill her. I do hope she learns that the people purporting to help her are leaving her not only defenseless, but unaware of that fact.

Gun News on a Friday

March 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The Good:

Just as YouTube starts banning gun videos a new place ramps up. I see myself losing a lot of time over there.

The Bad:

Citibank joins Kroger in virtue signaling. The bank’s actions worry me, because if others follow Citi’s actions it will strangle the gun industry. Just look at the damage Operation Chokehold did a few years ago.

The Hilarious:

Also related to YouTube’s banning, one channel decided on an alternate distribution channel. At least PornHub has a strong record when it comes to free speech.