While the anti-gun folks weren’t looking: “Fifteen states have enacted laws regarding guns so far this year, more than 80 percent of them increasing gun rights.” h/t Dave Hardy. Of course, this is further division into Two Americas., with the “blue” states getting more anti-gun, and the “red” states getting more pro-gun. Where will Pennsylvania fall? What about the other states that are solidly Democratic, but have a gun tradition? That is the big question. There are examples of bluer states that have remained relatively free in terms of guns, like Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota. But how long will those states hold out with a Democratic Party that’s dedicated to eradicating the Second Amendment? Colorado hasn’t fared so well in its flirtation with going blue from purple. Washington State is not out of the woods either, since it looks like we’re going to be facing a ballot fight there.
Author: Sebastian
Sorry for the Lack of Posting Today
Things at work are busy. In addition to the main project I’ve been working on coming to a header in the next few weeks, as we get closer to final delivery, on the side I’ve been busy layering my wookie suit. I’ve started a Bitcoin mining pool based on a half-baked suggestion from our CEO.
Bitcoin mining is actually quite like real prospecting, only digitally. They are looking for rare hashes; ones with a certain number of runs of zeros (determined by the network), which is unusual mathematically. The network can adjust the required difficulty up and down, depending on how quickly new Bitcoins are being discovered. This is algorithmic, so there’s no “central bank” so to speak, controlling the supply of the “currency.” This is what makes Bitcoins so attractive to the wookie suited among us.
Prospecting involves running through a lot of SHA256Â hashes looking for the “valuable” ones. Turns out GPUs are quite adept at doing SHA256 hashing, and since we have quite a bit of GPU processing power hanging around not doing a whole lot, it seemed like a potentially fun experiment, to try to find some of those rare and valuable hashes. I have no idea whether this can earn real cash, or what we could actually buy with Bitcoins, but our company encourages side projects, and this seemed worth learning a bit about (no pun intended).
Fortunately for you guys, the blog server was absolutely pitiful at mining Bitcoins. It has CPU power (which sucks at prospecting) rather than GPU power (which excels at it), so I decided using the blog server’s spare CPU cycles was never going to be worth the electricity it consumed. My workstation is also not so good at mining, even though it has a decent GPU, partly because I think Apple’s OpenCL implementation is craptastic. But a Linux machine with a mid-range ATI Radeon card in it? All your hashes are belong to us.
Live Anti-NRA Protest
Watch as a small group of dirty hippies holds a K-street protest against lobby shops NRA uses. I think they even have a drum. One of them just said “You know, even if I’m on the same side as Bloomberg on this issue, F**k Bloomberg,” while flipping the bird. Even if his allies think he’s insufferable. I’ve seen more people at hanging out at my club on an afternoon.
UPDATE: Protest seems to be over now. They are headed to Arizona Senator Jeff Flake’s office. I hope for his staff’s sake they shower first.
UPDATE: Back on now. Looks like they are headed over to Flake’s office.
UPDATE: They want everyone to know “We’re regular people.” Well, so are we, and there are a lot more of us than there are of you.
UPDATE: Just heard one of them say “It would just be easier to beat the shit out of someone,” in regards to someone in a car nearly hitting them because they are crossing streets without paying attention. Why are anti-gun activists so violent?
Understatement of the Year
I linked to this article earlier, but I wanted to highlight a quote:
But the problem might be less with Obama and more with democracy itself. To be a citizen in a mass democracy is to live in a permanent state of political frustration. There are so many people in the country with so many different views, and the institutions of a mass democracy are inevitably so clunky, that the political process isn’t going to give you what you want very much of the time.
Like the people who founded this country, I’ve never been convinced that more democracy in government is always a good thing. The old saying that democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner is cliche, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Our system was supposed to be a Constitutional Republic, with some democratic features, but with enough restraints placed on government that we could govern a large, diverse country without constantly being at each other’s throats. Unfortunately, the more democracy you add to the mix, the more it seems like those restrains don’t matter.
Thursday Mini Dump
Hopefully this doesn’t run me out of stories for the day, but gun news is still running pretty hot out there, so I’ll risk it.
Gun control thoughts after the Boston Marathon.
During the manhunt in Boston, 69% of voters wanted a gun. Also interesting is that less than half of Americans are upset about the Senate gun vote. So much for the 80-90% number.
The upcoming gun control jihad. Some people just don’t know when they are beaten. Not that we’ve beaten gun control, mind you, but Bloomberg is gun control’s future. Groups like CSGV and Brady have become largely irrelevant in the debate.
Another analysis of why NRA won and gun control lost, by Mother Jones.
Hey, even true blue Western states don’t like gun control much.
Some lies on guns are even too much for the New York Times.
USA today misleads on gun dealer inspections. It’s worth noting that as the gun control crowd is attempting to make FFLs the only entities that can legally transfer guns in this country, they are simultaneously trying to reduce the number of FFLs out there.
Who Need an AR-15 For Home Defense?
Around these parts, they seem to work just fine. Elkins Park is just outside of Philadelphia. I also note that this was an apartment, and it doesn’t appear that the shot over-penetrated. Interesting to note that the homeowner’s Congressman is a staunch advocate for banning his rifle, and is the likely candidate to go up against Governor Corbett in 2014.
Bloomberg Targeting Mark Pryor?
Seems they are considering it, according to Salon. What purpose would this serve? Do they think they can get a better deal on guns from an Arkansas Republican? The fact is Toomey was about the only Senator they could conceivably hoodwink scare into accepting a deal. Helping Toomey ruin his relationship with an important GOP voting block could pave the way for an anti-gun Democrat. That was a huge victory for Bloomberg.
Bloomberg is not going to be able to do a thing to Pryor on guns, short of replacing him with a pro-gun Republican. Same goes for other red state Democrats. They voted the way they did because the consensus on guns in Arkansas is vastly different than it is in New York City. Bloomberg will be running campaign ads for Pryor if he buys up Arkansas airtime telling everyone Mark Pryor hates gun control.
A Great Way to Explain How Gun Control Lost
Megan McArdle explains it succinctly here:
If you want to actually understand why gun control failed, let’s try a simple exercise. Â Raise your hand if you had a strong opinion about the background check bill that was in front of Congress.
Keep your hand raised if you know how your own Senator voted on it. Â Otherwise put your hand down.
Keep your hand raised if you actually live in a state that might plausibly elect a Republican to congress.
Okay, now keep your hand raised if that bill was in the top one or two issues that you’ll be voting on in 2014 or 2016. Â By which I mean, if your Senator votes the wrong way on that bill, you will vote for anyone who opposes them. Â Anyone–even someone with the wrong opinions on gay marriage, social security reform, transportation subsidies, the Keystone XL pipeline, carbon taxes, marginal tax rates on people who make more than $250k per annum, the deficit, and student loan repayment programs.
Now look around. Â Aside from those three guys in the back from Handgun Control Inc., do you know who still has their hand raised? Â NRA members.
Support for new gun control laws was high in the immediate post-Newtown period. Â But that support was evanescent; it’s already back below 50%, and probably still falling. Â Gun owners care year in and year out. Â And they vote on the issue.
RTWT, because it’s certainly true. We even write blogs that focus exclusively on the topic. In truth I’m not a completely single issue voter, but it’s certainly one of my top issues, given that it’s such a handy proxy for what a candidate thinks about the citizen’s place in our country. Megan has also made some very good points about negotiation. It was a horrible mistake for the other side to come at us with everything and the kitchen sink, because it helped us mobilize our people in a way I haven’t seen since I’ve been involved in this issue in a meaningful way (about 10 years now). It’s now becoming apparent that gun bans are no longer politically viable, and some minor regulatory changes are the best the gun control supporters can hope for.
Copper Shortages Coming?
Apparently a huge landslide has happened in an open pit mine that supplies 17 percent of US copper. Gun folks are already pretty good recyclers, but I think we can do better, and we’re going to have to do better. There’s only so much copper and lead in the world, and as we use up all the easy supplies, it’s not going to get anything but more expensive. A lot of clubs and ranges these days do lead reclamation, but many don’t. As the price of raw materials goes up, it’s going to become more and more important that we recover most of the lead and copper we shoot. It’s not only better for the environment, it’s just going to make economic sense once the raw materials hit a certain price point.
h/t Tam.
Senate Rules and the Gun Control Vote
Chris from Alaska has an analysis. I really question whether they actually wanted something to pass. There was certainly a path forward for some kind of bill, even if the pot had to be sweetened over what Manchin-Toomey tried to do. It’s been quite telling that each time this issue has gotten hot, they’ve had a pure background check bill they’ve been capable of advancing, but it’s always rejected because the bill lacks sufficient provision to assure that all guns are “papered.”