Lying Requires Knowledge and Intent

I understand the frustration of the writer, but I don't think their opponents are all liars -- not strictly.

Only one criminal out of six uses a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. Criminals use firearms about a quarter million times each year and they violate our “gun-control” laws millions more times. That means that gun control is and has been a failure.

In contrast, we defend ourselves with a firearm about 2.8 million times every year. Mass murderers take about 600 lives a year. We protected hundreds of thousands of our children with armed school volunteers every school day. If you haven’t heard it before then I’m telling you now…armed self-defense is far more common than the criminal use of a firearm.

Politicians who push for more gun control say their laws will disarm criminals. In fact, their 23,000 gun-control regulations — already on the books — disarm far more honest citizens than they do criminals. Mass murderers deliberately attack us in gun-free zones where we are disarmed by law.

Emphasis added. The thing is, I think that almost no one who advocates for gun control actually knows those numbers, nor even just the orders of magnitude. I think they mostly really believe that "common sense" conveys that fewer guns will mean fewer gun crimes, and that the solution is just so obvious that there's no need for further inquiry. I have never succeeded in interesting any of them in the actual numbers, and when I've quoted them I've only encountered stark disbelief that the numbers could be real.

Another one they absolutely don't believe is that accidental gun deaths involving children are vanishingly small -- some years a single digit figure in a nation of hundreds of millions of people with hundreds of millions of guns. Mostly the statistics you'll see in the press blur this by including everyone under 18 in the category of "children," and blurring how many shootings were really accidents versus how many were gang-involved. If you really get down to brass tacks on actual children and actual accidents, though, it's a very small number. Every one is a tragedy, of course; it's important not to forget that fact, even as we recognize that it's statistical noise.  

Rumble Test

Just seeing how to embed Rumble videos here, so some silliness follows.

I was never really a Fox News viewer, and don't have much of an opinion either way on Tucker Carlson, but I like what he says here, after Fox let him go.

Okay, let's see how this works.

Conan Report

He pulled out the two-half-hitches, so I retied it with a triple one. That should hold him. 

Neoclassical metalhead

 As a child of the '80s, one of the artists responsible for making me a life-long metalhead was Yngwie Malmsteen, a Swedish guitarist credited with creating the subgenre known as neoclassical metal. As the name implies, this is a genre of metal that is heavily influenced by classical music. It also features some of the most technical guitar playing that can be found in any type of music.  I have included just a brief sample of songs below, but there are other great bands that play this type of music, such as Stratovarious and Trans-Siberian Orchestra.      

Free Book: Unleash the Dogs of War

Probably for a very brief time, Amazon has the book Unleash the Dogs of War: Secret Missions in Support of Operation Crusader free on Kindle. (Look below the Kindle Unlimited to "$0.00 to buy".)

I haven't read it, but it looks like something folks here would appreciate. Part of the description:

During the Second World War, the summer of 1940 was a dark period for Britain and the Allied cause, and the German military was triumphant everywhere it went. Allied strategists looked for anything to turn the tide of battle in their favour. In North Africa, where the Allied armies had their backs against the wall, powerful benefactors who believed in the potential of the special forces bucked convention and allowed for their creation and growth.

North Africa became the birthplace and proving ground for some of the Allies’ most prestigious special operations forces. The infamous Long-Range Desert Group and the legendary Special Air Service were born in the desert, and other formidable organizations such as the Commandos and Special Boat Service first showed their true worth.

All of these organizations would have an important role to play in Operation Crusader, which played out in Egypt and Libya during 1941. They would go on to provide a great service to the Allied cause for the remainder of the war.

One From the Wife

Since we’ve had so much musical diversity lately, here’s one my wife likes. 

The New Normal

Over the weekend, the U.S. military bravely evacuated our diplomats from the U.S. embassy in Khartoum.

As a former diplomat, I feel an incredible sense of pride in our armed forces. Yet, I was horrified to learn that thousands of our fellow citizens didn't make it out.

They were abandoned by their government, while much smaller nations, like Spain and Saudi Arabia, were able to get their civilians to safety.

It is a bitter irony that today, as Biden announces his bid to again represent some 330 million Americans as president, some 16,000 are stranded inside this troubled East African nation.

In lieu of rescue, Americans left behind are advised to undertake a treacherous trek - on their own - across a 500-mile battlefield to Port Sudan.

It's unrealistic, dangerous, and deeply irresponsible.

This is not the way United States behaved when I served overseas.

It is, however, very similar to the way the United States behaved in quitting Afghanistan. At least this time the White House isn’t pressuring State to stop assisting or to actively block volunteer evacuation efforts. So far, at least. 

The urge to control

As Hayward points out, it's not just one party that gives in to the totalitarian urge.

Tartanic

The world isn’t all bad. Not while there’s beer and bagpipes. 

Heat Death

...Since it only “knows” the majority beliefs (or rather, the textual expressions of these beliefs) which exist on the Web, if ChatGPT takes over the bulk of mankind’s production of text then heterodoxy and heresy will be averaged out. Outlying concepts and beliefs will be averaged away from the contents of the Web as ChatGPT ignores outliers and swamps them with its own output. Outlying beliefs will become more and more rare, and regime-compliant beliefs will become increasingly common.

If its output is posted on “reputable” sites (schools, government bureaus, mainstream journalism, and so on), ChatGPT’s writings will arrive pre-approved for consumption by itself and other AI entities....

And since the Web has become the de-facto determiner of reality for citizens of the more advanced nations, ChatGPT could wash away heterodox thought from all but a tiny minority.

All the more important, then, are these algorithmic 'cleanups' occurring on blogs and in our comments sections. Unpublished, these ideas drop not just out of our reach -- who among us goes back and re-reads old comments anyway, or even many old posts? They also, and more importantly, drop out of the map that these large language models build. 

Why would Google go back and retroactively censor blog posts from a decade or more ago? Because it expects Bard to learn from what remains, and this is a first-pass purge of unwanted ideas from the AI's output.

So take AVI's point, and multiply it.

[F]ast-forward ten years, and is Dale made that much more invisible on a long quiet road? His book is still available, after all.  He hasn't been fired. This may be more of that ninja censorship I just read about and linked to.

Fast-forward ten years, and he may not exist in the Mind of Bard at all. It was instructed to ignore the book, and the internet was quietly purged of his ideas, or the ideas of anyone who thought like he did. The children who learn at the feet of Bard will learn only what was not silenced; and it won't even be Bard's fault. He never saw the things that were kept from his blinded eyes. He doesn't know to tell you those stories. They never existed in his world at all.

Sabatini Protection Services

It's a joke, kind of. It's also exactly what's really going to happen if things keep going the way that they are.

UPDATE: "You know, there was a time in this country when territory mattered."

Coincidence

Today was my father’s birthday. He died in 2016, receiving a heroic funeral from the Volunteer Fire Department he had so long served. 

Today I stopped by a little Mexican restaurant, one of Dad’s favorite sorts of food, on my way to night class at one of a neighboring county’s Fire Departments where we are doing technical rescue training. It hadn’t occurred to me at all that this was his birthday until I was eating, when I suddenly remembered. I suppose that, by pure chance, I had happened upon an excellent memorial for him. 

Spam Comments

After Tom noticed a missing comment of his in an earlier post, I'm reviewing the comments on the back end of the blog. I notice that a large number of comments by regulars -- and even by me! -- have been marked as spam and thus deleted from the ability to view them. 

Many of these are on sexual matters, especially as pertains to LGBT+ issues, but some of them are inexplicable. I assume this is part of Google's recent decision to review Blogger more closely, which had earlier resulted in some few of my posts being unpublished by them. Free speech, which is what internet blogging was initially all about, is under increasing pressure from tech companies that have decided it's too much trouble. 

Stunning Aurora Borealis

 Apparently the Aurora Borealis was very active last night- seen as far south as Arizona, Central California, Illinois, Virginia... I wonder how many of you were able to catch a gander.  Unfortunately, it didn't reach L.A., and we had overcast besides.  Had I known, I might have driven North to catch it. it's a bucket list thing for me.  It was also brightly visible over the UK:

The Northern Lights and a Meteor over Stonehenge this morning 😍 Photo credit Stonehenge Dronescapes on FB #Aurora #auroraborealis #northernlights #stonehenge #stars #astro #meteor #beautiful #april #astrophotography pic.twitter.com/RYIirr7X7J

— Stonehenge U.K (@ST0NEHENGE) April 24, 2023

Conan Report

“What is best in life? Licking the carbon steel you cooked those tri-tips on is pretty good, although the steak bits were better.”

Mark Knopfler for the Friday Tunes

Here's Knopfler in concert in Italy, 2013. Mostly new (in 2013), some going back to Dire Straits days.

Sensible Gun Control

I have argued that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to human dignity, and as such I reject and abhor any attempts to disarm free people as a basic violation of that dignity. I do, however, support this initiative called Knuckle-Up, which aims to establish a culture of voluntarily putting down guns in cases of physical disputes and solving them honorably with fists instead.

Knuckle Up’s mission is to promote a culture who’s first resort isn’t to use a weapon. As participants in the MC culture, we’re no strangers to conflict. Conflict resolution should follow an escalation of force. Most disagreements between grown men should be able to be resolved through discussion. If violence is necessary, we should be handling it in an honorable way.

Now this is by no means “anti-gun”. Personally, I am an avid supporter of the 2nd amendment. I hold multiple certifications in firearms instruction. I believe in the individual’s right to keep an bear arms, especially in defense of oneself. If someone seeks to do you harm, you should meet that threat with appropriate force. 

What we’re talking about here is extreme violence in response to being offended. Someone starts a fight in a bar, and then it’s another persons immediate reaction to pull a weapon. 

What happened to a culture where two men, who didn’t agree, could settle their differences with an honorable scrap and a beer afterwards? When did we start putting ourselves in situations, and then fearing for the physical repercussions of those situations, and as an out, pulling a gun or a knife. 

I don’t want to wonder who I’m going to burry tomorrow. It’s time we as men, took a stand against the weak, beta behavior of bringing a weapon to a fist fight. It’s time we made fighting cool again. It’s time we brought honor back to the MC. 

I hope you’ll stand with me. Shame the weak who would just as soon take a life before they took an ass whooping. Put the guns down, and knuckle up.

There are practical difficulties to be solved: for example, if you brought a gun (or a knife, which is what I generally carry because they're endlessly useful items as well as providing an aid to self defense), you would need to have a lot of trust to put it down in order to have a fistfight. It makes sense that they're coming out of a club culture in which you could have friends you'd trust to take control of the weapon while you fought, and also to serve as guarantors ("seconds," they were called in the dueling culture) that the other side would not exploit your relative weakness. The honorable resolution of the dispute needs to be upheld. 

Still, for those who aren't willing to go all the way to a resumption of dueling, it's a nice middle ground. Of course mature men almost never resort to physical violence to resolve disputes; that is mostly the province of headstrong youth. In that way we serve as respectable examples for them to emulate. In the meantime, it doesn't try to pretend that young men aren't what they are, or ask them to behave as if they were something else. 

Too, creating a space to do this without exposure to legal punishment could be genuinely helpful. A society in which even a shove on the shoulder is treated as a felony has no way within the laws for these young men to act out their natures. If they're outside the law one way or the other, why not take the steps most likely to ensure victory? Creating a space like this would grant the incentive of a way of resolving the dispute honorably, publicly, with a high probability of coming through it alive, and without the threat of legal ramifications. It could really cut down on the kinds of killings that really do drive our murder rate: usually illegal, usually with illegally-possessed handguns, often in the context of gangs and therefore such young men.

Wooden Swords

Used by children and those training in sword fighting, this one is thought to have belonged to a woman who was a weaver in Cork. 

Crafted entirely from yew, the hilt of the Viking sword is carved with faces associated with the Ringerike style of Viking art, a style that dates to the 11th century. 

Other finds included intact ground plans of 19 Viking houses, remnants of central hearths, and bedding material. These finds have convinced archeologists that the influence the Vikings had in Cork city has been underappreciated, and that it may be comparable to that in Dublin and Waterford.

 Cork is on the south coast of Ireland. The Viking influence was known, but was thought to have been less substantial. 

ATF Leader: Define a What Now?

Challenged to define "assault weapon," the thing his administration keeps asking Congress to ban, the ATF leader admitted that he doesn't really know anything about firearms. 

"I, unlike you, am not a firearms expert, to the same extent as you maybe, but we have people at ATF who can talk about velocity of firearms, what damage different kinds of firearms cause, so that whatever determination you chose to make would be an informed one," Dettelbach added, confirming that President Biden had put forward another entirely unqualified person to lead a powerful wing of federal bureaucracy. 

This is part of the problem of "government by experts" -- Biden, who picked him, knows even less about firearms than the man himself. How could he judge the expertise of the expert, lacking himself any such expertise? So instead:

3) Since the politicians have to choose, and can't distinguish between real experts and political allies who are claiming to be experts, they'll generally choose political allies -- there's something in it for them there, at least. Appoint some nobody just because he has a degree or something and that person might do anything once in power. At least the party functionary will do what you want.

4) Thus, the 'scientific and technological society' ends up not only destroying self-government in favor of government by experts, but actually fails to achieve government by experts in favor of government by factional loyalists regardless of their mental or technological capacities. 

Congress' previous effort here was no better; their definition was easily dodged by simply changing one or two features to avoid making the list. Besides -- one of Ms. Smith's actually correct facts -- the real problem isn't long guns of any sort.

Mass shootings, as horrible and as frequent as they are, still only account for a small fraction of all gun violence that occurs each year. Far more people die from handguns — exactly what Americans have been stockpiling for the last three years — and the victims are usually Black and brown, people who are increasingly getting lost in the partisan battle over firearms.

Handguns account for almost all gun homicide, and illegally possessed handguns for most of that. So most of the guns being used to cause the problem are already subject to 'gun control laws.' The problem is enforcement, not more laws. If you could address the issues of felons illegally packing heat, people illegally stealing guns, and so forth, you'd have solved most of America's gun homicides. 

But enforcement is just what they don't want; and therein lies the real problem. 

UPDATE: The road goes on forever.  

CONAN, What is Best in Life?

Brynn Tannehill: "The Grim Truth: The War on Guns is Lost"

That’s something that people who support gun control measures need to understand: The war is lost. There is no conceivable way for things to change for the better within the next 20 to 30 years, short of a national divorce. 

Erika D. Smith: "Trump and the NRA might be right about guns — and we mostly have ourselves to blame"

I began to realize that [Trump] just might be right in his political calculation. Because, far from losing, the NRA seems to be winning. In fact, it might already have won, polls be damned.

It's not the NRA, which was never (as Erika puts it) "a lobbying organization for gun manufacturers." It used to represent gun owners and enthusiasts, before it collapsed over internal corruption issues some years ago. The people moving the ball now are the Firearms Policy Coalition, Gun Owners of America, National Association for Gun Rights, and state-level organizations like the Virginia Citizen Defense League and Grass Roots North Carolina. But that's neither here nor there; she plainly doesn't know much about the issue.

She is convinced that her side has all the data, and the other side is motivated by mere emotion. Her facts aren't right, though; she claims that more guns equal more deaths, but in fact guns increased every year during America's 20+ year decline in violent crime. What caused the spike in homicides that we are currently experiencing (a factor she doesn't mention at all) was the George Floyd protests, which taught police that they were imperiled if they used deadly force in the line of duty, and subsequently taught America that the police couldn't be counted upon because they pulled back from such enforcement. 

People who never considered buying guns began buying them in great numbers, such that ammunition became scarce for several years running because so many more people needed it. Now it's not so bad, but that's not because demand has fallen: it's because new lines of production came online in response to the demand.

So you're right, Ms. Smith, in a way you don't know: you did do this. Black lives do matter, and police training and culture around guns has long needed to be re-examined. But this is on you. The NRA didn't do anything; they've been immersed in infighting for several years now. 

Her facts are regularly wrong, but that's expected; it's not 'about 25' states that have Constitutional Carry, it's a clean majority. There's a 3/4ths majority -- enough to propose and ratify a new Constitutional Amendment if necessary -- of states that recognize each others gun permits.

But I do want to quote another woman she encountered, because she's a woman after my own heart.

Patrice Johnson, one of the few Black people I spotted checking out the rifles and bins of bullets in the exhibit hall of the NRA convention, told me she carries a gun for self-defense. As founder of a motorcycle club, she has seen an uptick in men in cars and on motorcycles trying to assault women riders, sometimes attempting to run them off the road.

“I carry it on my person,” she told me, tapping her hip.

Havamal 38; Lk. 22:36. She's welcome at my table any time.