Mistaken Identity

Fox News reports:

Denver has a program that enlists taxi drivers to report suspicious activities.

The Tanner Gun Show is a pretty good sized monthly event held at the Merchandise Mart, just outside the Denver city limits.

A cabbie dropped a fare off at the show, who turned out to be an executive with an unnamed Italian firearms company who was carrying seven shotguns.

Seeing the mans "arsenal" the cabbie reported having dropped off a terrorist to the Adams county Sheriff. The executive's lawyer straightened things out fairly quickly although the executive was not the least bit amused.
------------------------------------
In all fairness however, back in the cabbies hometown of Peshwar, someone with seven guns may well be a terrorist.

 O.K. the cabbies home town was not suggested. Still, the Tanner features large numbers of people standing on the sidewalk with all manner of firearms hanging off of their persons much like the normal crowd at an Afghan arms bazaar.

Colorado Gun Laws

Under the 15-round limit law, smaller magazines with removal base plates are also outlawed — a measure that affects most handguns and many rifles, Kopel said of the move to limit gun ownership.

I've seen different interpretations of this ranging from "pay no attention to it"  to yes, any magazine with a removable floor plate is effectively banned.

I suppose it will be like most laws passed here, interpretation will be left to the cops judgement and/or orders from higher ups.

The city and County of Denver has always taken the most draconian interpretation of all legislation, and if it can't be over-interpreted, they write their own municipal statutes to fill in any perceived gaps. If you want a semiauto pistol, you'll have to buy it outside of Denver if you want any magazines at all to go with it.

Either that, or this law, like most of the others, will be widely ignored. 

There is a lawsuit started to overturn this, but getting anything through the courts typically takes a long time.

More Bad News

Not gun related this time, but still...

While out cruising down the Platte and up the Highline Canal on my bicycle, I'm noticing an unusually large number of dead trees. It seems that the drought is killing off the weaker ones and the late Spring isn't helping.

I've lost a peach tree, a walnut, and several shrubs and the remaining trees are very slow budding out. The late snowfall and freeze has stopped all flowering on the plums, apple, and remaining peach, so no fruit this year. The squirrels will be eating the bark off the trees to stay alive, so if I don't thin that herd, I'll lose the rest of the foliage weather we get any rain or not.

Cold and Dry: Global Tundra.

Bad Year

On top of the New York gun laws we got in the first quarter, now the gun club I belong to has been shut down. Some 1200 people are now looking for another place to shoot. There are a few in the National forests and on the National Grasslands, but none very convenient to the Denver area.

Cherry Creek State Park has a range with up to 100 yards available which I'm told if normally quite busy.

The next nearest ranges are about 1-1/2 hours drive from where I live, and have wait lists up to 3 years to get in. 

In the meantime I'm trying to find a place to shoot the e-postal match and dial in the .22. The problem being that the indoor ranges don't like you to use copier paper targets. First because they like to sell their own targets, but second because the debris from copier paper gunks up their air filters more rapidly than the soft brown stuff. I may have to shoot this one in my back yard with a pellet gun.

As bad as losing the range is losing the social group that went with it. That will be impossible to replace.

How The Game Is Played

When it is the privilege of the other side to make the rules, it is incumbent on the underdogs to understand those rules and use them to the most favorable extent possible. When it becomes apparent that your Tea Party group is going to be bogged down in IRS red tape with the chilling threats of even more IRS attention, the solution is to adopt the protective coloration of the other side:

In 2011 Conservative watchdog group Media Trackers filed with the IRS to achieve nonprofit status. The application got stuck in Obama-induced IRS limbo. In 2012 the same group changed its name and filed again with the IRS as “Greenhouse Solutions.” They were granted nonprofit status in 3 weeks.

I especially like the use of the word 'greenhouse' as it distracts the government drones at the Ministry of Truth from the actual orientation of the group, and carries the implication that your groups objectives can be more effectively carried out beneath a protective shelter.

Perhaps if the Tea Party organizations began to adopt the Liberty tree as logo and called themselves the Green Tree Party, "Our motto: Watering the Tree", they could get tax-free status in no time at all and vote the bastards out before they caught on.

Grammar Test

The fine points of English grammar can sometimes be confusing. That said, here's a grammar test from the BBC, the worlds greatest authority on energy, economics, social issues, and of course, English grammar.

I got 7/10, which for an engineer has to be fairly good. Any higher and I'd be looking for work as a professional pundit, librarian, or green energy expert.

Something In The Water?

BELCHERTOWN (CBS) – Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir.

State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates.

-------------
One of the college courses I took was a civil engineering course in water treatment. We visited the local reservoir and treatment plant. During business hours. Accompanied by a professor. With an appointment with the plant manager.

I have heard it suggested that there must be something in the water in Massachusetts, but no one ever suggested who it was who might be putting it there. Now maybe we know?

Obama Accepts Limbaugh Summit Offer

President Obama today has announced that he will accept Rush Limbaugh's offer of an economic summit, and has set most of the details for the historic meeting. The summit will take place at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The president has asked Mr. Limbaugh to appear there as soon as possible, assuring him that the military will provide him with lodging "fit for a Sheikh" upon his arrival.

Mr. Obama has also said that due to a very busy schedule  he has had lately including pre-arranged tee times, he cannot guarantee an exact date or time for his own arrival, but will be there to begin the summit as soon as he possibly can.

When asked, press secretary Jay Carney suggested that the soonest the president had any time slots available would be "late January, 2017".

Several prominent Republicans have applauded the president's offer stating that they would do their best to expedite the presidents arrival at the Guantanamo facility at the earliest possible date.

Colorado Law - State-of-the-State

Went to the Republican post-mortem today and heard what a bunch of poopy-heads the Dems are from the minority leaders of both houses. They thought they had given the people good ideas and good candidates in the last election but if they were all that good how come their titles include the word "minority"? The question of "what are you going to do about it?" came up. I didn't hear any definitive answer.

Both of them think the all-mail-in vote fraud bill is a complete travesty, which tells me that they expect to be minority leaders into the foreseeable future unless the electorate somehow finds itself hugely betrayed and votes against the Dems at levels great enough to offset the expected fraud.

There may be hope. The Dems voted in obligations without including funding in a couple of cases amounting to some $1Bn which will need to be found pretty soon. The marijuana regulation bill includes a call for taxation which the Republicans tried to keep low. The Dems set it up to start at around 30% combined to start with a proviso to allow it to grow to about 40% as quickly as localities can set their own rates. I bet the pot-heads thought the price would go down now that the new cartel was dealing the stuff. The tax on pot is subject to voter approval and it's unlikely to actually pass, so there will be no funding for regulation except from the general fund, which means that something will need to be cut.

Renewable energy will get a boost as the rural folk will be required to get some 25% of their juice from renewables. The urban districts somehow were exempted. Vestas, a maker of gigantic windmills, is losing $200M/quarter and needs the subsidy to keep the donations to the Dems coming.

By 2014 Obamacare will be in full cry and we'll see if the gratitude of people who pay no taxes at getting free insurance is greater than the anger of people who pay taxes at seeing their insurance rates quadruple.

There was also an education bill that called for a big increase in education spending. To what purpose was not specified. Here is a graphic that suggests that after about $6000/student/year, additional monies don't buy improved test scores

Colorado spends about $9300/student/year on K-12 public education. Note how much improvement that gets us on scores.

In secondary education, the Dems voted to give every person in the world who could show up at our door, in-state tuition at Colorado colleges and universities. Unless of course you happen to be from one of the other 49 American states. Just walk across the border and show proof you're here illegally. Don't forget to register to vote when you get your drivers license.

In Douglas County, the GOP has been pretty much having its way with the Dems and enjoys huge popular support. The leadership there recently tried to become state leader for the GOP but was told by the party membership from the more urban counties that they were not needed at the state level. The more urban counties were the ones that made Colorado such a solidly blue state in the last election, so the leadership there must know what they're talking about. That or the State GOP chairman is in fact a Democrat mole.

O Wad Some Powr The Giftie Gie Us..

To See Oursells as Others See us. Quoth Robert Burns.

Thanks to Zero Hedge, Here's one of several graphics showing how the Europeans see each other:

It is to note that pretty much everybody who is up to their eyeballs in debt owes it to the Germans. Several of the self-assessments are entertaining as well. Everyone sees their own country as most compassionate, no matter how punitive the tax rates.

The Brits and the French still hold one another in the same high esteem they've held since, I'm guessing, about 1066.

A lot of people are taking the position that the collapse of the EU is not a question of if, but a matter of when. The good news is that a war probably won't break out when it does since Germany doesn't want one with any of its customers, and no one else can afford one.

Fun With Headlines

Saw this on Drudge:

Joyce Brothers dead at age 85...

and wondered to myself: Who are the Joyce brothers and why would they both die together?

Gun Law - Possibilities

From a famous judge:

All too many of the other great tragedies of history – Stalin’s atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few – were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars. Alex Kozinski, 9th circuit

As much as I admire Mr Kozinski, I have to take issue with his conjecture regarding the Jew. For the most part they were all law-abiding citizens and loyal to their country, just like us. They followed every rule and regulation the government issued including laws requiring registration and ultimately confiscation of any guns they owned.

When registration was demanded, they registered, both themselves and their firearms. When it became illegal for Jews to own firearms, they dutifully turned them in, even going to the effort of surreptitiously bringing guns found after the turn-in dates to the police in order to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

When ordered to turn themselves in, they had no choice but to pack a small bag and get on the trains. They were good law-abiding citizens with an unlimited trust in their government. Just like the CCW holders at the Aurora theater who dutifully either left their guns at home or locked them in their cars.

In this country where gun ownership is generally only moderately restricted, about 1/3 of the population might be said to have the “firearm and twenty rounds” called for in the Militia Act, although that percentage is rising. In 1935 it would probably be safe to assume that no more than 1/3 of the Jewish population possessed a firearm either a hunting piece or a pistol, frequently a holdover from WWI. Had 9 million Jews possessed a rifle and 20 rounds, and the will to use them, there would have been no holocaust. A messy insurrection maybe, but no holocaust.

It comes down to the will, real or perceived, to use the guns you have. To Quote Saul Alinsky’s rule #1:  Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. You may not plan to use them, but you should never leave the impression that you wouldn’t.

May e-postal - First Person Shooter

This month the match is more like your favorite video game, DOOM!

You probably recognize all the silhouettes. Just to keep it interesting, some of the higher-value targets require multiple hits, just like in the game. New improved rifle rules too!

Visit Sand Castle Scrolls or The Smallest Conservative and download the target and the rules.
It's Limited Vickers so no more than 20 holes per piece of paper to conserve ammo.

Gun Purchases

Days Of Our Trailers has some stats up from Illinois. There a new gun buyer must first obtain a FOID card, the Chicago equivalent of the yellow star formerly used in Europe. Existing gun owners will already have one of these and not need a new one.

Applications are running an average of 53,300/month in a population of some 12 million.

Extrapolating the numbers, the FOID figures for Illinois imply that the country as a whole is adding 1,325,153 new gun owners every month. That's people who didn't own one before.

Couple this with 2.181M NICS checks average for this year, and existing gun owners are buying some 856,000 additional guns per month. Probably a bit less as not all NICS checks are for gun purchases.

The U.S. Military is about 3 million strong, including cooks, clerks, and bottle washers.

Smoke forces evacuation of White House press room

None of the mirrors were damaged in the evacuation and activities returned to normal within 1 hour.

Story from Fox.