Hipsters: more conformist than a Victorian matron.

Kathy Shaidle had a post the other day about New York hipster types taking up hunting and target shooting because they think its "edgy". Here's Kathy's post, and here's the original story: "How Gun Culture Won Over Liberals: The new "gun nuts": media elites, locavores, and hipster hunters."

The story begins:

On a Sunday morning a couple years ago, Brooklyn journalist Foster Kamer and a few of his "particularly liberal" blogger friends decided to skip brunch and hit the shooting range instead.

"We said, hey, let's do something ridiculous," he recalled. "Let's go shoot guns."

They chose the nearest site they found, a range that operated out of a basement in midtown Manhattan. "The first thing that happened when we got there was we heard some guy hammering away at a target with what sounded like a cannon. It was just in such tight quarters. It kind of freaked us out."

It didn't keep them away, though.

One 30-minute gun safety lesson and a few bucks later, Kamer and his friends were blasting away at their own targets — the first of many. "Sometimes we go bowling, sometimes we eat together, and sometimes we go shooting," he said. "It's something to do."

Yes, they go shooting because its "something ridiculous". Forty seven layers of irony available to any hipster OWS/peacelovedove dweeb liberal punk who goes <gasp!> SHOOTING. Its so completely wrong, it has to be right. And of course they discovered what boys have known for a few hundred years now, shooting is -fun-. Its big fun. Huge fun. Its a hell of a fun time.

So they go shooting for several years, and then... Aurora!

As for Kamer, he said he hasn't picked up a gun since last July, when a masked shooter opened fire on a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

"After that, I think the thought just occurred to me, like, you know, there's something that feels a little bit weird about doing this right now," he said. "I just kept thinking, Jesus God, am I propagating this? Is there a way to justify this to myself?"

But Kamer, who spoke to BuzzFeed Wednesday afternoon, minutes after President Barack Obama went on TV and laid out the most aggressive gun control agenda in a generation, said there should be room on the left for both a cultural appreciation for guns, and support for the president's efforts.

"Do I plan to go back again [to the range]? Yeah, yeah, I probably will," he said. "Would I mind my ID being checked and having to sign off on a bunch of forms before I'm handed a rifle and a box of 20 shells? Hell no, I wouldn't mind."

Several things spring rather forcibly to mind.

First off, this retard immediately draws a connection between his harmless weekend target shooting in the basement, and the mentally deranged Aurora Colorado shooter. ""I just kept thinking...am I propagating this? Is there a way to justify this to myself?" Which is pure magical thinking at its finest. A Haitian witch doctor couldn't come up with better. Little Foster's weekend target practice causes Aurora. Genius.

Second, "Would I mind my ID being checked and having to sign off on a bunch of forms...? Hell no, I wouldn't mind." He knows he's waaaaay off the reservation here, and he's terrified. Suddenly the nested levels of hipster irony are conflicting with Holy Writ! Guns Are Bad, Guns Cause Crime, Gun Owners Are Eeevile Republicans! That's liberal catechism. Little Foster better show he's all about the government gun control and he's got a big ol' man-crush on Barry too, or he's going to get ex-communicated.

That would be bad for him. He's a lefty blogger/writer/journolister. If he gets declared persona non grata by the liberal universe for being a possible NRA supporter, all his hipster friends will stop calling him up. Everyone he knows will de-Friend him on Facebook. His Twitter followers will drop him like a hot rock. He won't get any more writing work. His blog hits will disappear. He'll have to get a McJob.

Little Foster is in danger of being shunned from Polite Society, in other words. Enough whiff of scandal about him that he might not get those invites to tea and parties anymore, like a fourth tier Victorian society woman caught out without a chaperone.

These little boys like to pretend they are Edgy, Transgressive, Ironic, and all that other do-your-own-thing BS that liberals champion. But they're just pretending. In reality they're all conforming to a pretty rigid set of regs, dress code and all, stressing like mad in case somebody denounces them as UnCool and they get tossed out of New York like a leper out of a nudist colony.

The Phantom

AR-15 might have been really handy here.

It began as a quiet night...

The ordeal at the Nordstrom Rack store near Los Angeles International Airport began at about 11 p.m. when a man called 911 and reported that his girlfriend had called and said there were gunmen in the store, Lt. Andy Neiman said.

Police officers and special weapons team members swarmed the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center, an outdoor shopping center that also contains restaurants and a theater.

The super-duper "heavily armed" Special Weapons And Tactics from the super-duper amazing highly trained Los Angeles Police Department squad rolled up and took over the whole area. They had body armor, full-auto assault weapons, flash-bang and sting-ball grenades, and probably an armored car with a cannon on it. They got to the mall, surrounded it and... nothing!

SWAT members surrounded the location but weren't able to talk to anyone inside during the four-hour standoff.

Wow. Four hours without a peep, then they go in? What did they find?

When they finally burst into the store, they found hostages locked in a storage room and others in a bathroom, Neiman said.

The 13 women and one man were all believed to be employees because the store was closed when the robbery began, Neiman said.

One hostage was treated at the scene for a non-life threatening stab wound, Neiman said.

Another employee had been sexually assaulted, Neiman said, although he declined to provide details.

Yeah. It took the Super Squad so long to get there that the robbers had time to stab somebody, rob the place, stick all the kids in a "storage room" AND have a little fun with one of them, then scarper away like little bunnies. Clean getaway.
Then the Super Squad stood around looking dangerous for FOUR HOURS while the kids stifled in the closet. Good thing that "non-life threatening stab wound" didn't bleed much, eh?

So remember my friends, police are not there to save you. They can't, and as in this case even if they can they probably won't. They are strictly there to put on a show and clean up afterward.

No one is coming to save you. You are on your own.

Next time you see Piers Morgan on TV, remember the LA SWAT team waited FOUR HOURS in front of an -empty- store with wounded kids trapped in it.

The Phantom

Blast from the past: David Hemenway comes out from under his rock

Back in the day when I looked into the medical research on gun control, one name kept coming up over and over again: Dr. David Hemenway.

Paid gun control boffin of the Joyce Foundation, Dr. Hemenway's greatest hits include:
I am the NRA: an analysis of a national random sample of gun owners.  Violence Vict. 1993 Winter;8(4):353-65. 
Loaded guns in the home. Analysis of a national random survey of gun owners.   Weil DS, Hemenway D.  JAMA. 1992 Jun 10;267(22):3033-7.
Firearm training and storage.    Hemenway D, Solnick SJ, Azrael DR.JAMA. 1995 Jan 4;273(1):46-50.

I've read these studies, and a lot more by Dr. Hemenway and his little friends at Haaaaahvaaahd. His basic modus operandi is to conflate two things together, like guns and cars, and argue that these things should be treated in the same fashion. Because cars are licensed and inspected, guns should be licensed and inspected. He also likes to make sweeping policy statements based on telephone surveys with really small sample sizes.

Well, he's back at it after Sandy Hook, and his new paper is called "Curbing Gun Violence: Lessons From Public Health Successes"

Predictably published in Journal of the American Medical Association, he tries to pretend guns are the same as cars, cigarettes AND poisoning. Which is just friggin' GENIUS. He's got the whole gamut of gun-ban love in here. He's got magazine restrictions, he's got the "SmartGun" electronic control, he's got Assault Weapon (boooo hissss!) bans, he's got TAXES on guns and ammunition, and new for this year he's got Hollywood taking guns out of the movies.

Here's the table from the article:

Which sounds really great and everything, except for this: guns are not cars, they aren't smokes, and they aren't toxic household products.  Guns are -weapons-. Weapons have a specific purpose fundamentally different from vehicles, smoking and etc.

Criminal acts of violence committed with guns, specifically assault, murder and suicide are not accidents. They are the deliberate and purposeful acts of willful individuals. Which take place in very small geographic locations, not spread evenly across the country.

So to pretend that the type of public health policies that have been applied to accidents and habit forming drugs are applicable to murder and suicide, if I were feeling charitable I'd characterize it as stupid. Silly. Ridiculous.

But it isn't stupid, silly or ridiculous in this case. Its a deliberate lie. One that this man, Dr. David Hemenway, has been making a tidy living spreading since the early 1990's.

If you want to watch the man lie out of his own mouth to Sandra Cupp on video, here's some MSNBC for you.

I hate liars.

Dear Dr. Hemenway, please do us all a favor. Crawl back under your rock and take all this bullshit with you.

The Phantom

Barry may order gun law by executive order!

Well true believers, we have word from the Mouth That Roared, Mr. Joe BiteMe himself, that The One my simply decree new gun laws.

Vice President Joe Biden revealed that President Barack Obama might use an executive order to deal with guns.
"The president is going to act," said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. "There are executives orders, there's executive action that can be taken. We haven't decided what that is yet. But we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required."
Biden said that this is a moral issue and that "it's critically important that we act."
Biden talked also about taking responsible action. "As the president said, if you're actions result in only saving one life, they're worth taking. But I'm convinced we can affect the well-being of millions of americans and take thousands of people out of harm's way if we act responsibly."

There you have it. King Barry will simply wave his hand, say "make it so", and so it will be.  My surmise is that there will be mandatory registration for all gun owners, registration for all guns, no mags over five rounds, and all makes/models of semiauto rifles will be prohibited for sale. Canada, basically. On steroids.

I doubt there's much he can do that will survive a Supreme Court challenge today... but he's got FOUR MORE YEARS to finish packing the court, my friends.  That's a long time, and some of those Supreme Court dudes are old. Just a waiting game now.

In that spirit, I'd say to you Americans y'all better get out there and buy whatever you think you might need or want right now. Off the books, too. Or you'll be sorry later, when you can't get whatever it was.

And if they declare universal gun registration? Seven million Canadians decided "what they don't know can't hurt me" when the sonsabeeactches did it here. Historical fact, don't y'know.

The Phantom

Scientists: dumbest smart people on Earth.

Here's an example of a guy who should bloody well know better using a mathematical principle to try and prove something about gun control. And doing it -wrong-.

... Dr. Michael Shermer, who writes a regular column for Scientific American, is the force behind Skeptic magazine, author of many excellent books dealing especially with evolution and why people believe weird things, and – interestingly – is a self-described libertarian.

Ok, take it away Skeptic guy talking about the Aurora theater shooting:

We do know something for certain, however, and that is that this will happen again…and again and again. The reason is the law of large numbers that I will outline below and that is disturbing enough that it really is now time to rethink our gun-control laws to include the prohibition of semi-automatic assault rifles like those Holmes' allegedly used to murder 12 and wound another 58 in a matter of seconds. Had he not had such weapons—possessing, say, only a pistol purchased for self-defense—the tragedy would surely have been lessened. Thus, even though I am a life-long libertarian who champions freedom in all spheres of life and has previously opposed gun-control measures in principle (I do not personally enjoy hunting or recreational gun shooting), I now believe that the freedom of a few people to own WMM's (Weapons of Mass Murder) conflicts with the freedom of the rest of us to enter the public sphere without the chance of our ultimate freedom of life itself being cut short. Here are a few figures that should give even the most freedom-loving libertarian and conservative pause.

Oh, I am all ready for those figures, baby. Lay it on me Mikey!

• First, there's a good chance that James Holmes is schizophrenic, suffered from severe depression, or is a psychopath.
• The current U.S. population is approximately 314 million, about half of which are males, so if 2 percent of the 157 million American men suffer from one of these severe disorders, this results in a figure of 3,140,000.
• So let's conservatively estimate that if only 1 percent of these 3,140,000 men commit any kind of violent act, this results in 31,400 acts of violence per year, a nontrivial number.
• If only 1 percent of those violent acts involve murders, that leaves us with 314 unnecessary tragic deaths caused by psychopaths.
• And, finally, if only 1 percent of those murderous violent acts involves killing multiple people at once, this results in a rate of 3.14 Aurora-size mass murders per year in America, which is actually lower than the rate of around a dozen per year that we have been averaging the past half century, depending on what constitutes a mass murder (school-shootings alone that amount to more than one killed in one event happen on average once a year in the U.S.)
• History and population demographics for rates of mass murder show that Aurora-size events are going to happen again and again and again, and there is no way to predict who is going to do it, where, or when.

 In the article Mikey takes a lot longer to make his point. I stripped out a whole bunch of crap to get down to his bottom line, that there are an annual average of twelve incidents of murder where more than four people die in the USA, and they are completely unpredictable.
Which is true. Then he says this:

Thus, damage control is the only option we have, if we want to do something about this tragic social problem. And by damage control I mean gun control. Specifically, I mean outlawing all automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles for anyone who is not in law enforcement or the military. When the Second Amendment was written stating that citizens have a right to "keep and bear arms," rifles took over a minute to load one bullet at a time. The most crazed 18th century American could not possibly commit mass murder because no WMM's existed at the time.

Not really dude. They used bombs instead.

Now, this here is an example of the reason why scientists are the dumbest stumps on the planet. He goes from "tragic deaths caused by psychopaths" to "outlawing all automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles" with no intervening logic or connection between the two things. He spends the whole article proving crazy people walking around loose are a problem, and then says

"The freedom for you to own any gun you like is in conflict with my freedom to interact freely with my fellow citizens in public spaces when so many madmen mingle among us."

Yes friends, because we don't lock up dangerous crazy people any more, guns must be banned for everyone everywhere in case a crazy man might get his hands on one. Oh, but if a crazy man manages to get one anyway... you're frigged.

Dumbest. Scientist. Ever.

Why do you think they're poor?!!!

NY Post:

Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip clubs — where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a Post investigation found.

What, this is a surprise? Maybe to liberal bleeding heart types, but not to anyone who knows The Poor. They're poor because they're -stoopid-.

The Phantom

Beliefs have consequences.

You know how atheist Leftists looooove to mock Christians because they believe in stuff that can't be proven or isn't true?

Well now friends we can mock them back, because they have their own catechism of stuff that's completely wrong.

Case in point, the idea of gun control is that guns -cause- violence. The presence of a gun in an emotionally charged situation creates the situation that someone will get shot. If no gun was there, then no fatal incident could happen.  Because its much too difficult to simply beat somebody to death, whereas shooting somebody is easy. Just a trigger pull.  Therefore because its easier people are more likely to do it. In the literature this is known as the "Impulsivity Theory" of gun violence.

Now, without arguing the validity of the theory just yet, let us examine the logical consequence of it. If guns make it easier to kill somebody, how about other things? Wouldn't a knife make it easier to impulsively stab somebody? Well yes it would, and indeed there are plenty of British doctors signing on to a policy of banning certain kinds of knives.

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing.

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

Also, Japan has what's referred to as the Firearms & Swords Control Law.  Meaning anything the cops feel like calling a sword, pretty much you don't get to have. In Japan, on the whole only the cops and the Yakuza have guns, and only museums have swords. Except for the odd mass murderer, now and again.

How about a baseball bat, wouldn't that make it easier to beat somebody? Well yes it would! Shouldn't we ban them then? Well yes we should, and in Tokyo they do!

Four teen-age biker gang members were arrested Sunday as Tokyo police for the first time wielded a traffic restriction on cruising the streets with baseball bats.

A 17-year-old metal worker from Chiba and three other boys received the dubious honor after they allegedly carried metal baseball bats while riding around Tokyo.

Under a revised Tokyo traffic regulation introduced on Sept. 30, people sitting on the backseat of a motorbike are banned from holding a baseball bat, iron pipe or similar items.

Highway police said the boys, who were riding tandem on two bikes, were netted at a temporary checkpoint set up in a Toshima-ku part of the Metropolitan Expressway early Sunday. (Mainichi Shimbun, Oct. 28, 2001)

Hey, how about DANCING? Dance clubs attract all sorts of bad elements, can we ban dancing? Well yes we can, and in Tokyo they do.

Japan's club scene is dying. From Sapporo to Fukuoka, dance floors in some of Japan's most prominent venues are filled with motionless twenty or thirtysomethings, if at all.  Club staff make their rounds, interrupting unknowing or rebellious jubilants and pointing to the prominent "No Dancing" signs in major Roppongi clubs (your taste may vary), where they even give out paper warnings that read something like this:

              PLEASE NO DANCING

It's prohibited by the Japanese law to dance in any commercial place in Japan. We don't allow to dance in this establishment.

Thanks for the cooperation.

Poor translation aside, this is the state of Japan now. Some clubs even kick out dancers, although swaying like you're at a high school dance seems to be acceptable (perhaps out of pity).

 Clearly once you believe that things cause crime, there is no limit to what you need to ban.  Britain banned guns, now these idiots at NIH are on about knives. Japan banned guns AND knives, now they're on to baseball bats and dancing. In Saudi Arabia women wear the veil because a woman's uncovered features cause rape!

That this belief is both obviously and demonstrably insane does not matter! The believers believe it, and they will put thier hands over their ears and shout "La la la can't hear you!" if you try to question their belief. You can't talk to them, you can't mock them, you can't shame them. They have the One True Belief and -you- are just an infidel.

There's really only one way to manage people bent on banning your freedom to keep you from misbehaving. Three guesses what that is, first two don't count.

The Phantom

As I said, the facts are not at issue.

California gun sales boom coincides with fewer crimes. Gee, how did that happen?

Gun deaths and injuries have dropped sharply in California, even as the number of guns sold in the state has risen, according to new state data.

Dealers sold 600,000 guns in California last year, up from 350,000 in 2002, according to records of sale tallied by the California Attorney General's office.

During that same period, the number of California hospitalizations due to gun injuries declined from about 4,000 annually to 2,800, a roughly 25 percent drop, according to hospital records collected by the California Department of Public Health.

Firearm-related deaths fell from about 3,200 annually to about 2,800, an 11 percent drop, state health figures show.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html#storylink=cpy

Now here's something you don't see every day, a statistical clarification in a news story:

 

Two caveats: State figures track gun sales, not ownership. They treat a family's first gun purchase the same as a collector's twelfth. Second, gun sales in California peaked in the early 1990s, as violent crime also peaked.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html#storylink=cpy

There's also an attempt at obfuscation:

Most of the drop in firearm-related injuries and deaths can be explained by a well-documented, nationwide drop in violent crime.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html#storylink=cpy

But, there's nowhere to hide. In order to disprove the gun control position, all we have to do is take note that the number of guns sold in California nearly doubled while gunshot deaths dropped 11% and gunshot injuries dropped by a quarter. That's it, job done, Dianne Feinstein Sarah Brady and the whole rest of the gun control crew just got sunk with all hands. Because their position in that guns CAUSE crime, and here we have yet another instance which proves they do not. Observational proof, the strongest possible kind.

What's interesting in this article is the raw sales numbers. People in the bluest Blue State, ground zero for the hippie revolution and most socialist place in the USA, are arming themselves in record numbers. Democrats may be winning at the polls but a sizable minority is not believing their hype.

The Phantom

UPDATE!!! Gun owners turn tables on newspaper goofs!

Another sign that this time its different, people are TAKING ACTION against Lefty retards in the media instead of politely ignoring them. This one I am posting, because its about time somebody served up some payback on these hypocritical pond slime. You want to post the name, address and etc. of every gun owner in Westchester on a Google map? Fine. Two can play that game.

The map indicates the addresses of all Journal News Employees in the New York Tri-State area. Each dot represents an individual Journal News employee -- a reporter, editor or staffer. The data does not include freelancers — reporters or photographers — which can be hired without being an employee. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location is a responsible reporter or editor, just that they are a reporter or editor.

Yes friends, somebody finally has had it with Lefty newspapers messing up people's lives for money, and has posted the name, address, picture and bio of the New York Journal News employees responsible for the pre-Christmas release. So now you know which front step to put that flaming bag of dog poo on.  Not that I would ever condone such tricks etc. etc. etc.

The Phantom

Merry Christmas!

War against gun owners now officially declared. Its ON.

This is that part of the slippery slope where the ride really starts to pick up speed. Gannett Newspapers has published an interactive map with the name and address of every pistol permit holder in Westchester County and Rockland County NY.  I'm not going to publish a link, if you're dying to see the map you can go find it yourself.

The map indicates the addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties. Each dot represents an individual permit holder licensed to own a handgun — a pistol or revolver. The data does not include owners of long guns — rifles or shotguns — which can be purchased without a permit. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location owns a weapon, just that they are licensed to do so.

Data for all permit categories, unrestricted carry, premises, business, employment, target and hunting, is included, but permit information is not available on an individual basis.

To create the map, The Journal News submitted Freedom of Information requests for the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam. By state law, the information is public record.

Putnam is still putting together its records and could not immediately provide any data. The map will be updated when that data is released.

Not content to stay with the obscene caricatures noted here the Media Party is now resorting to public shaming, as well as providing break-and-enter artists with a shopping list.

Maybe the NRA should publish a map of every single son of a bitch who works for Gannett Newspapers. That would be entirely fair, I think. And the overlap of concealed weapon permit holders with Gannett employee could be marked with Drudge's flashing cop light.

The Phantom

Gun control is the same as welfare. Duh.

Oh, man. Sometimes it kills me how long it takes to figure this stuff out. But now I get it. The light bulb just lit and illuminated my poor dark cranium.

Gun control is the Welfare check of personal safety. Duh.

I've been trying and trying and TRYING to figure out why tax-the-rich liberals refuse to consider owning a gun as a reasonable answer to violence. It doesn't matter what the facts and statistics say, they won't hear it. The mystery to me was, what do they get out of this attitude?

I can see why liberal politicians love gun control. Because it grows government! They get money, they get power, they get to hire more guys to boss around, they get more opportunities for graft, its -awesome-.  Plus, if you're going to arrange a nice coercive police state, as these socialists are clearly doing, it helps tremendously if the sheep you're fleecing can't shoot back. Every tyrant since Genghis Khan knew that.

But what does the average dumb-ass Obama voter get out of this? The gimme gimme crowd who don't know a gun from a ham sandwich and could care less. The Obama-Phone people. How do they benefit here?

Well, I finally get it.
The Obama voters like gun control because it means they don't have to do anything.

This is the concept that finally makes sense of it all. They like gun control because get to lean back and let somebody else worry about it. Let the government keep those mean old guns away from those poor misunderstood crazy kids who might otherwise kill somebody.

See, with the way us cwazy Conservatives have it figured out, the ObamaPhone lady has to go buy a gun, learn how to use it, and practice at the range. And worse, if she gets shot by a mad killer its her own goddamn fault because she is responsible for her own protection and her own life. Nobody to blame but her own self.

She doesn't want that. She wants her welfare check in the mail every second Friday, she wants her Oprah on her big screen TV, she wants her free Obama phone, and she wants somebody else to do the rest of whatever. Especially if its scary.

And that right there is why, whenever I argue with one of these liberals about guns, I get nowhere. They don't want to hear that they are responsible for their own safety and the safety of their family (if any). They do not want to hear the best way to meet that responsibility. They want to hear how somebody else is doing it for them. And how somebody else is paying for it, that's big too.

So when Barry comes along after a massacre and says it'll all be ok if only we can take the guns away from all those bitter clinging rednecks in Flyoverland, all those liberals are lining up to come and kick some redneck ass. Because its easier.

That's why the propaganda is different this time. It is aimed at de-humanizing gun owners, making them the enemy. The scape-goat. The bad ones who must be suppressed for the Greater Good.  Along with the Rich, SUV drivers and those tacky Christians. And smokers.

The Phantom

There is only one thing which can be said to this.

My guns have killed less people than Michael Bryant's car.

The Phantom

Doesn't take much to make hipsters censor themselves.

Makerbot is a company that makes 3D printers, and owns Thingiverse, a web site containing plans for printing all manner of things designed by people who felt like sharing. Its supposed to be wide open, upload whatever you want, open source, peace and love.

Makerbot today shows its true colours. Which are Commie red.

You have the right to bear arms. But you don't necessarily have the right to upload them.

In the wake of one of worst shooting incidents in American history, the 3D-printing firm Makerbot has deleted a collection of blueprints for gun components from Thingiverse, its popular user-generated content website that hosts 3D-printable files. Though Thingiverse has long banned designs for weapons and their components in its terms of service, it rarely enforced the rule until the last few days, when the company's lawyer sent notices to users that their software models for gun parts were being purged from the site.

I've thought for years that these open-source geeks were all fair-weather bullshit, and wow am I right again. What a bunch of pussies.

The fight goes on though.

In response to Makerbot's crackdown, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson wrote to me in an email, saying that the group plans to create its own site for hosting "fugitive" 3D printable gun files "in the next few hours."

Neither Wilson believes that neither Makerbot's purge of gun parts nor the outcry over the Newtown shooting has hampered Defense Distributed's initiative. "The Internet routes around censorship," he writes. "The project becomes more vital."

Defense Distributed website is here.

May I suggest going and downloading a set of their plans to a thumb drive or a CD, and maybe hitting their tip jar too. Just to piss off the liberals at Makerbot if nothing else.

The Phantom

Just in case you thought that Goebbles thing was a bit harsh...

...direct from the horse's ass, as it were:

"There are no arguments against doing something," said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut. "The notion that more Americans, quote unquote, in the words of Governor Perry 'packing heat' will make us safer is not founded in reality, facts, or history. It is founded in the fantasy of testosterone-laden individuals who have blood on their hands for articulating that idea."

Rep. John Larson, another Democrat from Connecticut, agreed with his colleague and said that "to do nothing is to be complicit" with mass murder.

"Perhaps you're familiar with the 60-vote rule in the Senate," [Nancy] Pelosi told me. "Our members are very courageous. They'll walk the plank on any tough vote. But I don't want them to walk the plank on something that's not going to become the law."

"This is a very high priority for us," Pelosi continued. "But because of what is—money. Let's face it. Big money out there on the side of those would be opposed to gun safety."

There you go. Stigmatize, marginalize, and pretty soon euthanize.

Because hey, who wants a bunch of "testosterone-laden individuals who have blood on their hands" hanging around, stinking up the joint?

The Testosterone Soaked Phantom (Man, I gotta take a shower!)

Where have I seen that?

I was surfing the Lefty Bilge-o-sphere and discovered this astounding post by Rachel Marsden.

Anyone who can't withstand a rational debate on the subject of gun control -- particularly in light of last week's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut -- should be automatically prohibited from ever owning a firearm. In fact, this should be the number-one requirement of gun ownership: Can someone applying for ownership of a deadly weapon withstand an hour-long debate against someone in favor of gun control without resorting to physical or verbal assault?

Is it too much to ask that every person wanting to possess a firearm be subject to a battery of tests -- everything from intelligence and emotional quotient exams to a psychological evaluation and background check? When America's Founding Fathers drew up the Second Amendment, they didn't do so with the mentally stunted, emotionally disturbed and deeply insecure in mind.

There's a characterization of gun owners for you, "mentally stunted, emotionally disturbed and deeply insecure", wow. That sounds familiar though, doesn't it? Where have I heard that before?

Then I found this cartoon. It seems familiar, again. I'm sure I've seen something like that.

Ah! Here it is!

That worked out so well last time too.

Joseph Goebbels

Rachel Marsden

Its funny, there's no resemblance between these two but their thinking is nearly identical.

How can you tell if a Liberal is lying?

His lips are moving.

Federal Conservatives, in a paroxysm of unfortunate timing, announced today that they were repealing some gun-show related regulations which have never been implemented.

The changes kill a set of rules that were introduced by the Liberals in 1998, but never brought into force after years of consultations and deferrals.

Here's the official response from the Ontario government.

Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer Chris Wyatt said there is now no official way to ensure sellers are verifying licenses, and nothing on the books that requires a gun show sponsor to tell police an event is being held.
Wyatt says there are genuine concerns about theft and illegal sales at gun shows.
"Gun shows are a major source of illegal firearms in the United States, and that could happen here. That's why we thought there should be greater regulation of gun shows now that the registry is gone," said Wyatt.
"Some of these gun shows, they have hundreds of vendors and thousands of firearms. It might be an attractive target for criminals to steal firearms or acquire firearms. With long guns, the standard is now very low for accountability."

Well as it happens, gun shows -aren't- a major source of illegal firearms in the United States. Gun shows are regulated precisely the same as gun stores.  In fact most of the exhibitors are gun stores. The ones that aren't are those schmucks that sell crappy t-shirts and army surplus junk.

And, gee whiz, THEY NEVER APPLIED THE  LAW, DID THEY? So how come we're not all dead? If we're all unprotected now... then we've been unprotected since 1998 because that law's never been used. And if its SO super dangerous, how come there's not a pile of skeletons where Canada used to be?

Because its horse shit, that's why.

Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer Chris Wyatt, the guy who's ultimately in charge of whether or not you get to be able to defend yourself or even just go hunting, just lied right up in your face ladies and gentlemen. High, wide and handsome.

God I love Ontario. Its just so... awesome.

The Phantom

Gun control, so 90's. New sweetness? Sword control!

Guns, so passé! 

A sword-wielding woman was arrested Wednesday morning after she entered a mosque located on the campus of a private Orlando school.

Dominique Vianneyte Eloi, 47, was arrested on charges of possession of a weapon on school grounds, disrupting a school function and aggravated assault with a weapon.

According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office, Eloi drove onto the campus of Leaders Preparatory School on North Goldenrod Road near East Colonial Drive and North Chickasaw Trail and got out of her car carrying a 2-foot-long sword.

An employee asked the woman what she was doing, but she did not respond, authorities said. Authorities say she didn't speak English and had several identifications on her, including one from Arizona.

The school was placed on lockdown, and the school worker called authorities.

Deputies spotted Eloi leaving the mosque and she was arrested.

No one was injured.

An investigation is ongoing, and deputies said it's unclear why Eloi went to the campus.  It's also not known if she has any ties to anyone at the school or mosque.

"I have no idea who she is or why she chose to come here," said Iman Mohammed Musri, of the Islamic Society of Central Florida. "I tried to speak to her, but she didn't respond to anything, she started speaking German."

According to the school's website, one of the listed goals is to "provide a comprehensive Islamic education combined with a general studies curriculum."

Never a Morlock around when you need one, right? Bwaha!

Please notice, pouty liberal reader, that the cops didn't find this alleged nut until she'd already done whatever the hell it was she wanted to do with that sword, and was -leaving-. Reassuring, yes?

 Boy, its a good thing that school/mosque was a gun-free zone!

The Phantom

Liberals never, ever learn anything.

Canada's Liberal Party, stuck on stupid forever.

There's no reason assault rifles like the one used to slaughter 20 young schoolchildren in Connecticut should be available in Canada, says Liberal leadership hopeful Marc Garneau.

The Montreal MP said Tuesday he'd look at banning semi-automatic weapons, like the military-style, .223-calibre Bushmaster used in last week's massacre.

"There is absolutely no reason that anybody can vote to say that that kind of weapon, that can fire off great numbers of rounds like that, is necessary," Garneau told The Canadian Press.

"That kind of weapon, to me, definitely — well, it is (already) a restricted weapon but one should look at not allowing those things."

Mr. Garneau may not have noticed, but his party already did everything he's suggesting. And now they are but a shadow of their former selves.

They posture, they prance, they pout, but they don't learn.

The Phantom

Joe Manchin, Trayvon Martin, and Barney Fife: Implications for Gun Safety By James Fallows of The Atlantic.

Dear Sir:

I read your piece in The Atlantic today. I would like to address your points in order as you wrote them.

1. Maybe this time is different.

I agree. This time is different.  After every mass shooting or notable gun incident such as George Zimmerman defending himself, gentlemen and ladies of the media like yourself trot out the same arguments. The Josh Sugarmann argument that "assault weapons" are different. The "impulsivity" theory so popular in the medical literature that guns cause crime merely by being present. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

But this time, everybody knows all those arguments have been disproved. This time, your readership knows that you know it too. For example, you know very well that the M-16 is a rifle specifically chosen by the US military because it was -less- lethal than the M-1 Garand, and that the AR-15 is not a machine gun. You know that .223 caliber ammo is too weak for deer hunting. You know that the Second Amendment is not about deer hunting. You've been told so often over the years by so many people, your ears probably ring every time you hear it again.

All you media guys know this stuff. And after 2000 when Al Gore lost the election to Chimpy McBushitler you didn't bring up any of it for twelve years. Until today. Post election 2012, Obama safely ensconced for four more years.

This time is different, because this time there is no chance at all you are mistaken or just don't know the facts.

2) Are more guns the answer?

Yes. Obviously so. Furthermore as I said above, you know it to be true. Already demonstrated across the USA.  I don't have to bore you with the Concealed Carry success story or all the famous cases where armed civilians stopped mass shootings. You know them all.

3) What about the "knowledge gap?"

There is no knowledge gap. There is no question about "whether gun-safety advocates "know enough" about firearms to make sensible proposals". They aren't gun safety proposals. They are gun confiscation proposals. Civil disarmament proposals. Propaganda disguised as concern for the children. "As the father of a young daughter, I for one do not want her growing up in a world where she is told she has to carry a gun to be safe."  Please. Can we really be that stupid, Mr. Fallows? Really?

This is not a debate, sir. Its not a discussion of the relative merits of a public policy. Gun control has no merits. It is a stupid idea which doesn't work, and has been proven not to work every single time it is tried. You know it, and we all know that you do.

This is a partisan smear campaign waged by the Democrat Party for political advantage, and you are a volunteer. Your boss got his daily update from the Democrat Party. He told you to dust off that anti-gun piece you've had cluttering up your hard drive since the 1990's, and you did. How does the saying go, "never let a crisis go to waste"?

I should tell you though, I think you and the rest of your main stream media colleagues are making a grave mistake. The only concrete result of your propaganda push has been record breaking gun sales in an already record breaking year. It seems to me that about half the people in the USA have decided they really need lots of guns and ammunition, as in lots more than they already had stored up from four straight years of record gun sales.  Call me a crazy gun freak if you like, but I don't think that's a healthy sign in a democracy.

The Phantom

Update: Well the guy wrote me back! It was an awesome conversation:

James Fallows  

Brave people write under pseudonyms.

The Phantom

Smart people write under pseudonyms, you mean.

Do you know the term SWATing? It happens to people like me sometimes when we disagree with sacred cows like gun control in public. Ask Patrick Frey and Erick Erickson how they liked it Mr. Fallows, that would be my answer to you. Safety first.  Or perhaps take the example of Stephen Crowder who got punched out on camera last week by one of your Democrat coreligionists in Michigan.

At any rate, you want to back up your article or you going to concede my point?

James Fallows

Sorry, no written exchanges with people who won't use their real names.

Like any name I give this idiot is going to be the real one. I'm tempted to make some shit up, but its really not worth the trouble, he'll just lie. Again.

Point conceded!