Guffaw in AZ

Holder/President Obama want to BAN so-called assault weapons, again

2012-02-27T10:17:00.001-07:00

Say Uncle reports via The Daily Caller that United States Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress during the 'Fast and Furious' hearings that 'they' (the current Administration) are still working on a way to reinstate the Clinton so-called assault weapon ban.
Per Holder:
This administration has consistently favored the reinstitution of the assault weapons ban. It is something that we think was useful in the past with regard to the reduction that we’ve seen in crime, and certainly would have a positive impact on our relationship and the crime situation in Mexico. (emphasis Guffaw)

He was using this statement to not answer direct questions regarding his knowledge of U.S. government sanctioned smuggling of weapons into Mexico to the cartels, some of which have been used to kill American law enforcement agents, Mexican agents and Mexican citizens.
Quelle surprise?

You Never Know...

2012-02-27T07:03:00.001-07:00

Rev. Paul posted about how he keeps his .38 +P in his pocket, so he can get to his briefcase 1911, so he can get to his rifle in his truck...
Reminded me of a friend's incident in the past...
Bob, my immediate supervisor @ Tom Ezell & Associates (and later my favorite gun store) went home one day in the middle of the afternoon. (In the 80's)
If memory serves, he was carrying an H&K P7-8 at the time. No one was expected to be home.
He keyed his way in the front door, as was his custom, and something didn't appear right.
His TV was missing, and where the stereo equipment was, there were cut cables.

He reflexively cleared leather, and heard noises down the hall, in the bedrooms.
So he sliced-the-pie to head down the hallway, opened the hall closet, and accessed his H&K .308 rifle. He holstered the pistol and quietly checked the chamber of the rifle, advancing.
From there, he continued to clear the hallway and rooms, advancing toward the sounds.
(Bob knows the 'technique' taught in the self-defense schools is to exit quietly and call the police from a neighbor's house. He didn't. I've been there, too, and I didn't. There's something about intruders present in one's own home that arouses ones hackles! - Guffaw)
ANYWAY,
He advanced down the hall, clearing each room quietly, until he got to the back bedroom. There were three ~~unauthorized~~ ~~occupants~~ ~~illegal~~ ~~aliens~~ burglars - two inside the house, the other outside the window, they were transferring the swag outside.
He covered them from the hallway and announced his presence. Funny, even though they didn't appear to speak English, they knew to remain still, very still. The miscreant outside took this opportunity to exit stage left, perambulating all the way.
Bob let him go, rather than shoot him in the back in his retreat.
As he'd pickup up his cordless phone en route, he called the PD. They arrived forthwith, first on the scene was a plainclothes female detective. Her advice to Bob was he should have shot them all (!)
Ultimately, the two were prosecuted and deported. You just know they were back in the United States before the paperwork cooled.
Justice served.
Yeah, right.

More coincidence in the PI biz...

2012-02-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

When I had my own PI license, much of my work was for insurance adjusters locating people who had been held responsible for an accident, but had 'skipped' to avoid paying for their responsibility.
In the pre-Internet days, much shoe leather (and tire tread) was expended attempting to find such persons.
One case I was assigned was to locate a young woman who reportedly worked for (get this) a telephone company inside an electronics firm. Huh?
I ran the usual drill: directory assistance (no current listing); calling the previous good number (disconnected).
The electronics firm was a very large company with U.S. government defense contracts, so trolling the large parking lot for license plate numbers was out (armed private security).
I went to the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (jocularly referred to a MoFoVee) and obtained a driving record and vehicle information for our 'skip'.
The driver license had old data, and the motor vehicle record showed one vehicle, with a heretofore unknown address. Huzzah!
The address was almost walking distance from my home office!
I had to drive-by a couple times to catch the vehicle parked at the new address. Confirmed.
After preparing and sending out the report, I shared my good fortune with my wife. She worked for a large electronics firm. You can see where this is going, can't you?
She explained that a private telephone company was resident within her company to maintain the thousands
of telephones and intercoms throughout the company campus, and connection intercompany with other corporate buildings throughout the Valley.
My wife had had lunch the previous week with my skip! They weren't close friends, but knew each other in passing, and happened to see each other in the lunchroom.
Who knew?
About a week later, they had lunch again. My skip was apparently quite upset that process servers had found her and served her at her new address. She explained to my wife that she had left the scene of an accident, so she had to keep moving to avoid responsibility. She had no idea how they found her.
My wife had to keep biting her lip to keep from giving it all away.
Small World, eh?

"We have met the enemy, and he is us!" - Pogo

2012-02-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

Kevin Baker: Walt Kelly was more right than he knew...
Kevin, in his wisdom writes of the Decline and Fall of the American Republic, followed by a loyal readership commenting as to the specific reasons for such a decline.
This all began with the wisdom of Tam, on which Kevin built...
By the time FDR ran for office, our government was essentially no longer a republic. Passage of the Seventeenth Amendment (direct election of Senators) in 1913 destroyed the last vestiges of our republican form of government in favor of a representative democracy wherein "the people" elect representatives to "fix the problems (their) constituents beg them to fix" in both houses. The freedom to make "wise" (and therefore possibly unpopular) choices in the upper house of Congress had been removed by the 17^th Amendment. Now running for Senate didn't mean you needed the respect of your peers in the House, it meant you needed to promise whatever it took to the populace to get their votes - just like every other politician. Thus Mencken's observation:

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

Go. Read. Learn. Ruminate...and, perhaps Cry. - Guffaw
Walt, we should have listened to you!

h/t Tam, Kevin, Walt Kelly

Concerned Citizens = Militia Extremists

2012-02-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

Instapundit links to official government documents defining those who are citizens concerned about their Second Amendment rights and the steady encroachment of the federal government as “militia extremists.”
This is from a Department of Homeland Security lexicon recent published.
Amazingly, the “lexicon” appears to directly violate standards published by DHS just weeks before the document was sent out.


found on Google's photo page, under 'militia'

For all the gory specifics, please go to the link above. Ignore the photograph, it is 'not me'.

h/t Glenn Reynolds, Patrick Poole

Gas Is Cheap

2012-02-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

The Travis McGee Reader expounds on the real forces behind the ever-increasing gasoline prices, and our frustration with them.

You just put $75 worth of unleaded in your little car. You cussed the Arabs and the Africans and the Venezuelans and the Texans. When we get the pipeline from Athabasca you'll cuss the Canadians, too, eh?

Wrong targets, Bunkie. Your enemy isn't wearing a turban, a sombrero, or a Stetson. He's wearing an Armani with real button holes in the sleeves. He's carrying an alumni card from a great university and impressive government identification documents.

Go and read the whole essay at the link, above.
At least then you'll know whom to curse.

h/t alongfordmick

Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold...

2012-02-24T08:01:00.002-07:00

BLOGGER is up to it's old tricks, yet again.
(not that it's running well, anyway...)
It seems it refuses to column all my recent posts, making the reader click on
older posts to see the most recent.
Sorry about that.

I'm apologizing, because we know BLOGGER won't.- Guffaw

UPDATE - taking Rev. Paul's counsel, I checked my settings on my BLOGGER Dashboard. Shows SEVEN posts. Re-set it and refreshed my blog. STILL three...
Oh, well, we get what we pay for! - Guffaw

Watch Your Children Around Water!

2012-02-24T07:41:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, it takes me a while to catch on...
George @ Newbie Shooter posted a series of statistical charts regarding gun death, gun accidents, gun suicides, other suicides and homicides.
Linoge copied these (with full credit to George), and We'erd Beard linked to Linoge.
I saw them again, @ We'erd World.
(Finally, I got it!)
walls of the city/Linoge has all the graphics, with explanation (not that explanation is needed).
One example:

Why isn't the Brady Bunch focusing on falls, motor vehicles, poisonings, drownings?
Answer: Because they're more concern with abrogating individual rights than saving lives!
In this area, except for the media focus on child swimming pool drownings (which happens all to frequently, pools being ubiquitous + parents not watching their children), all you hear about is bad gun stuff!

Go to the link above and see all the facts. - Guffaw

And watch your children around water!

h/t George, Linoge, We'erd

7 Items You Won't Believe Are Actually Legal

2012-02-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Cracked.com is the Internet version derived from Cracked Magazine. (You guys remember, the mag next to MAD that no one bought?)
ANYWAY, they have all manner of bizarre, twisted stuff on the site. I found this link entitled,

7 Items You Won't Believe Are Actually Legal

(Of course, they then place legalese warnings about how some stuff MIGHT be illegal in your area. And your guys, being gunnies and all, will believe they are!)

The list includes Tannerite and GE Mini-guns...

Of course, Cracked isn't libertarian, and asks after every item "Holy Balls, Why is it Legal?"

Go check 'em out at the above link!


flamethrower

mini-gun

Happy Birthday George Washington!

2012-02-22T08:41:00.001-07:00


a younger Washington

Cato @ Liberty reports on why we honor George Washington.
Today is his birthday (yes, I know, Monday was ~~President's Day~~ Designated George Washington's Birthday Federal Holiday).
I remember being given a dry, boring, rather perfunctory image of Washington in public schools while growing up.
"The Father of Our Country" - whatever that meant?
A likeness of the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington in old age. No smile, worn, powdered wig. He appeared formal, unreachable. Old.
It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I took an interest in the man and his life and accomplishments.
My favorite story about George Washington was as he was an active farmer, he was quite strong. He could crack walnuts as a nutcracker between his thumb and forefinger!
He wasn't a great thinker, like Jefferson, but he kept growing in character.
As such, after the Revolution, he resigned his commission in the army, and returned to farming.
He later refused to run for a third Presidential term and did the same.
He could have been a king, had he chosen to be. But he chose to be a servant to the People of this Constitutional Republic.
And that's his gift to the People.
Thank you surveyor, farmer, distiller, humble man with a huge ego.
And to us - we should all strive to keep growing in character.
Go read the link, above.

h/t David Boaz

Walmart Endangerment

2012-02-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

The Arizona Republic reports a man dropped his gun in a Walmart restroom in Mesa (Az.).
He may be charged with endangerment.
Allegedly, as he was sitting down in the restroom, his Ruger Western-style .357 firearm fell from his holster and discharged.

No one was injured, although another restroom patron was about five feet from where the round ultimately landed.
Perhaps the gentleman should have properly secured the firearm before dropping trou?

h/t Az. Central

How to be a PI (Lesson 4) pre-1986

2012-02-21T05:37:00.002-07:00

"The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!" Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) in The Jerk (1979)
Back before the Internet, telephone directories were a great source of information. Not just the current book.
If one could go back a few years, sometimes a subject had his number previously published-even though now it was non-pub.
How do you go back a few years? The Public Library or the University Library. Many have telephone books adjacent to their city directories, going back many years.
Want to find an older address? Published number? Relatives with the same last name from years ago?
As a PI, I had a fetish for telephone directories. I began collecting Phoenix directories as they were published when I first became a PI. Then, later, when I worked with Dennis Kayer @ P**M** Security, he had a collection. He got out of the PI biz and gave me his collection. Probably 100 books. Cities and Towns State-wide. Some going back 8 years! Then, when I had my own license, I placed a standing order for all Arizona State telephone directories as published.
"The new phone book's here!"
They began to be a bit of a space problem. Personal space versus utility.
Ma Bell solved the problem for me. She was broken up in the mid-80's and the Baby-Bells were created. Each one with their own telephone directories, not always including other phone company customer information. It became more difficult to keep track of what directories I had, needed and what I used. After a 'difference of opinion' with a contract employer, I came home one day and eliminated all the directories from my home office. They didn't have recycling then.
Looking back, it was more about the end of an era - the monolithic telephone company. And, with many of the old phone books now on line (!), space is saved.
And privacy is further eroded. That's a cross I bear, libertarian privacy guy vs. investigator. Hopefully, the newer, resources are used only for good.

Yeah, right.