Anti-Gun Forces Pushing for En Banc

I guess California and Hawaii going shall-issue is a bridge too far for them, for they are willing to push for an en banc ruling, which would likely reverse Peruta, and put the decision to appeal back in the hands of the NRA, probably sending this to the Supreme Court. They have every cause to be worried, because even now sheriffs are being deluged with concealed carry license applications. The Supreme Court, having rejected several new gun cases this week, probably strengthened the hand of the antis, figuring they can get reversal, and the Supreme Court will decline to review. Unfortunately for us, that is not an improbable outcome.

Peer Reviewed

You can’t argue with science, or the peer-review process, except when it’s been demonstrated repeatedly that the process is horribly broken, as represented by the fact that many prestigious peer reviewed journals are having to remove papers that are automatically generated gibberish.

Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, has catalogued computer-generated papers that made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013. Sixteen appeared in publications by Springer, which is headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, and more than 100 were published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), based in New York. Both publishers, which were privately informed by Labbé, say that they are now removing the papers.

These were people trying to game the system, but it’s been done deliberately to expose weakness:

There is a long history of journalists and researchers getting spoof papers accepted in conferences or by journals to reveal weaknesses in academic quality controls — from a fake paper published by physicist Alan Sokal of New York University in the journal Social Text in 1996, to a sting operation by US reporter John Bohannon published in Science in 2013, in which he got more than 150 open-access journals to accept a deliberately flawed study for publication.

Someone quick, send them a Turbo Encabulator!

Shannon Watts Still Pressuring Facebook

Having given up on convincing legislatures to commit political suicide, she now turns to the biggest source of moral cowards in America, corporate board rooms. With that, she’s been pressuring Facebook to become more anti-gun. I say more anti-gun, because as the article points out, they already do not allow legitimate federally licensed gun dealers to advertise on Facebook.

I’m honestly not sure what she expects them to do? Set their systems to trigger on the word gun, or pictures of guns, and make sure no one is trying to sell something? Put something in their policy about not allowing people to sell guns illegally? I get these people are big on thinking pieces of paper and words can stopped psychopaths and sociopaths, but I have to believe she’s looking for a little more bigotry out of Facebook than that. Shannon Watts is a world class fanatic, after all.

If Facebook ends up banning pictures of guns, or talk about guns, I’m through with it. It’s already pretty much ruined itself. The only downside for the big is that Facebook is now in my top five sources of traffic. Maybe NRA should direct its 3 million followers on Facebook to call the company and tell them to tell Shannon Watts and her 147,000 rabid mommies to go to hell. Facebook has a lot more to lose if we leave.

UPDATE: Caleb with basically the same post. Shows what happens when I don’t have time to check in with the other bloggers.

You’re Doing it Wrong

This guy will be a candidate for a Darwin Award:

The victim reportedly held three handguns to his head and pulled the trigger, explaining that firearms are safe when they’re not loaded. A fatal bullet was discharged from the third gun.

I’m pretty sure the lesson here is don’t take gun safety advice from this guy.

News Links for Wednesday

I appreciate everyone’s patience with the fact that I can’t really post much on Tuesdays and Fridays, which are the days I’m in the office. We just have too much going on right now, and the company has lost a lot of time because of the winter weather this season. When I’m home, I recover two to three hours every day not having to commute, so I can contribute more content to the blog.

The Week wants to ban the Second Amendment. They note that a “consolidated democracy” has never gone “Full Weimar.” What’s a consolidated democracy? And what’s full Weimar? The Weimar Republic was no picnic, but it’s what came after that was the problem. Someone is a bit history challenged. Ask Ukraine or Venezuela how democracy worked out for them?

The push from Coalition to Stop Gun Violence to get Visa to drop its NRA program is getting a decent amount of press, despite the fact that almost no one showed up to the protest. The burning white hot hate that CSGV has for NRA’s 5 million members couldn’t be more apparent.

E.J. Dionne’s Stand Your Ground fantasies. More on this from Andrew Branca at Legal Insurrection.

Another Connecticut newspaper arguing that 300,000 of their fellow citizens belong in jail. This is Irish Democracy at work. My hat is off to the refuseniks.

Remember, our opponents in the gun control movement believe you have an obligation to obey. You need to sit back and take whatever your government dishes out. Comply citizen!

Should we amend the Second Amendment? I’d like to. I’d suggest “The right of the people to buy, transport, carry, bear, practice with, repair, arms, which means firearms, ammunition, particle beam weapons, knives, swords, and any other weapon one can pick up and carry, shall not be infringed. Period! That means strict scrutiny. That means no balancing tests or judicial weaseling. We mean it.” But I’m pretty sure they’d find a way to screw that up too.

Unfortunately, I think the republican spirit is dead.

Off topic: Clayton brings up one of my pet peeves, the H1B program. It traps immigrants in often lousy jobs at substandard pay, and makes it too difficult for them to compete on the open market with everyone else. It’s a terrible program and it should be replaced with a visa that’s portable across jobs. That way they aren’t abused by companies as sources of cheap, compliant labor.

Rising up against government.

Personally, I think Piers Morgan, now departing CNN, probably helped our cause more than hurt it. Talk about someone you don’t really want on your side.

The sooner someone with mental illness gets treatment, the better the outcomes. Though, our elites and media prefer to ignore mentally ill people until they go on shooting sprees, and then blame the “gun culture.”

Some Thoughts About Remington, Jobs, And Its Union

California could see 1.4 million concealed carry licenses issued.

Another false flag? They are popping up like daisies.

Infolinks anti-gun?

The truth hurts: A parody of the Moms who demand action.

More from Reason about the Irish Democracy breaking out all over Connecticut.

Hope is Not Lost

I’m surprised by how many people think a sellout by Chris Christie is preordained. Remember that he vetoed the worst of the post-Newtown package, including the 50 caliber ban. He did sign a bill regarding the terrorist watch list that turns out can’t be implemented, however. While I don’t exactly trust Christie on the gun issue, it does seem to me that there’s at least reasonable hope that with sufficient pressure from the gun community, you might be able to muster another veto out of him. If Jerry Brown can veto a few gun control bills, so can Chris Christie.

Guns in Film

Sig is having a little fun with their firearms used in various films with a “SIG SAUER in the Cinema” game that features categories such as Best Actor (Rifle). Yesterday’s vote was for Best Actor (Pistol).

This is a case where I would find it very hard to vote for the particular guns. Let’s face it, with the photos they are sharing, it’s more a case of who is the hottest with the gun. In the rifle category, I’d have to choose between Clive Owen with the SG 550 or Tom Hardy’s lips with the SG 552. How could a gun girl possibly decide?

Sadly, my Sig wasn’t in yesterday’s line up of Best Actor (Pistol). I guess Hollywood doesn’t like my gun. In fact, according to the Internet Movie Firearms Database, it doesn’t look like my Sig has ever been used in a movie. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Another False Flag Group?

I always become suspicious anytime someone talks about “building understanding and trust” with the firearms community. That is usually someone who is out to take something from you, but who thinks they’ll have more success being nice about it and fooling you. That’s the vibe I get from these “Evolve” guys, who are hawking this video:

On the surface there’s not really anything objectionable, since I don’t really support people being dumbasses with guns. But I think it’s the idea that they need to get this message the rubes, who clearly don’t know any better, and need their betters to guide them. They fail to recognize our own community has been preaching a safe and responsible behavior for as long as we’ve been a community, and that as a result, gun accidents are at all time lows.

We already have strong evidence that this group is a fraud that’s pushing gun control, given that one of their leaders was out after Sandy Hook lamenting the demise of gun control. We don’t need this group. They are snakes who take us for fools.

Is Christie Stupid Enough to Bite?

The Democrats have reached a deal that would reduce from 15 to 10 the number of rounds a magazine may legally hold in New Jersey:

Democratic lawmakers in both house of the legislature have struck a deal that would allow passage of a measure restricting gun owners to a 10-round
magazine, down from the current limit of 15, two sources with knowledge of the
deal said today.

In exchange, the legislature will shepherd through a gun-owner championed bill that would define what are known in the gun world as “reasonable deviations” to the law governing transport of a firearm.

Currently a gun owner may only transport an unloaded, stored weapon straight to the destination, be it on a hunting trip or to a gun range. Under the law, a gun owner may detour from the route only for deviations that are “reasonable.”

So in exchange for something that they should just give us, because it’s a right, you know, they go from 15 to 10? No deal. Kill it with fire. I believe the purpose of this is to tempt Chris Christie to ruin his own national ambitions. The Democrats probably feel they have nothing to lose. If Christie signs the bill, he’ll create the same problems with the base that McCain and Romney had. If he vetoes, Democrats in New Jersey believe gun control wins elections, so they will make an issue out of it in the next Governor’s race. The Dems believe they have everything to gain and Christie everything to lose. But will he be dumb enough to sign it if he wants to run for the GOP nod for 2016?