Sebastian – Page 354 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Recoil Magazine Summons the Drama Llama

I can’t quite agree with Miguel or Lawdog that this is Super Zumbo. The big problem with Zumbo, and why we were so enthusiastic in his Zumboing, was that he was a very widely known and respected outdoor writer, and suggested that those of us who liked to own and use black riflesÂ were terrorists. His statement was an absolute gift to the other side, and coming only a few years after the assault weapons ban had expired, was directly relevant to an ongoing political struggle.

In this instance, Recoil Magazine certainly stepped in it, but until now I’ve never heard of them, and looking around the web not many other people had either. So I am less concerned with the fact a small potatoes gun rag suggests none of us should own an MP7, which none of us can own. It certainly doesn’t help, to have them say something like this, and I certainly would never subscribe to their magazine after reading about this, but Zumbo was a big fish, and these guys are bait fish. In looking for what Recoil’s circulation numbers were, the best I could find was 15,000, which isn’t too bad. Except then I realized that Recoil Magazine was a satire publication, and is not a gun rag. The gun based Recoil Magazine have 26,000 fans on Facebook. Best I could find, which means none of the outfits that track circulation numbers give a crap enough to report on them. Outdoor Life, the magazine Zumbo was hunting editor for before The Incident, has over 700,000 subscribers.

So I’ll help spread the word, but I just don’t think these guys are a big deal. I’m also not sure this article is going to have much of an effect on their counterstrike kiddie subscriber base. Maybe if they said you shouldn’t own an Airsoft MP7 either, it would be enough to get their subscriber based really worked up.

The New Civility: Gun Owners v. Gun Controllers

That the crowd who supports gun control can sometimes be a bit unhinged is certainly not news to those who frequent the gun corners of the blogosphere, but lately it’s been getting even worse. Just today, from Twitter:

I’m not sure where I was making a joke in that conversation, or where the bigotry and racism comes from, but whatever that hejjet guy is sniffing, smoking or snorting, he should really share with the rest of us, because that’s some grade A hallucination right there. Of course, that’s not all. Let’s not ignore the other shit gun control activists say. Blaming the gun for gun violence is nothing new, but the latest tactic is collective blame. If you own a gun, and especially if you advocate for your Second Amendment rights, you are responsible for every crime or accident with a gun that comes along.

This is what the gun control movement in this country is now reduced to. It greatly pleases me, because they aren’t far from political oblivion if this is the best they can proffer. The funny thing is, despite the accusation, it does indeed feel increasingly like we’re up against angry children, who offer child-like arguments to the problems of our society.Â We must keep pushing.

Generational Changes in Technology Use

There’s a lot of things I don’t like about the “millennial” generation, or whatever the hell it is we’re calling those kids these days, but I tend to track them on technology use. This is an interesting article speaking of the decline of voicemail, especially among younger people.Â (via Insty). As someone who’s never liked phones, I could not be more pleased. I do almost all of my communication via iChat and texting these days, except when I need to talk to old people who don’t text.

There are other generational differences in technology use too, which I’ve noticed, both in workplaces and in my personal life. One is printing. I actually own two printers, but I very rarely, if ever, print anything. Most of the baby boomers I’ve worked with, if they want to read a paper, will send it to the printer. I do almost all of my reading electronically.

Baby boomers fairly readily adopted e-mail as a communication medium, which I think that’s probably the next technology likely to be rejected by the young, if it hasn’t been already. I’ve gotten rather indifferent toward e-mail as a medium. I still use the work e-mail systems, but I’m absolutely horrible about reading and responding to e-mails. Part of the problem with e-mail is that spammers have largely ruined the medium. Spam filtering is getting better, but it’ll never be perfect, and there’s nothing more annoying than having someone ask you about an urgent e-mail, only to find it in your spam folder.

Of course, that’s not to say there’s not a difference between me (a Gen Xer) and the Millennials. I’m typing this on a desktop computer with two 23 inch monitors. Desktops, I think, are becoming something lame old people use. The kids these days seem to love their thin laptops with 13 inch displays. I don’t know how they can get any work done in 13 inches. I have a laptop too, but it has a 15 inch display, an ethernet port, and a DVD drive, and much of the time when I use it, it’s at a desk hooked up to a big 24″ monitor.

What other generational shifts do you all see in technology use?

LAPD Police Qualifier Test: How Gun Nuts Did

Joe Huffman decided to set up the LAPD Combat Course qualifier at a USPSA match:

What this means is that in a little over a week we will have data on how the shooting skills of “a bunch of beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies” stack up to the qualification course for a major metropolitan police force.

You’ll also note that in order to comply with USPSA rules, Joe actually had to make the course more difficult. Well, the results are in.

“We put 22 people through the stages. 20 people passed with a 60% or greater. That is 90.9% passage. The best results were by Roger who scored 95.1%. Roger was shooting a revolver.”

Now, could we please dispense with this notion that gun nuts are just wild-eyed mad men who will just kill all manner of innocents if they are ever forced to recklessly defend themselves? Would a police academy class have a 90.9% passage rate on a combat qualifier?

Taking the Fight to the Enemy’s Capital

Spreading the Second Amendment around in Upper Manhattan. Predictably, others freak out and make a stink, but gun rights are coming to New York City. It’s only a matter of time.

What Works in Cheyenne

The Daily Caller is noting that we’re not seeing anymore of “What works in Cheyenne may not necessarily work in Chicago,” in the Democratic gun platform. Why? I’m wondering if the Administration doesn’t want people pointing out that Cheyenne has a much much lower crime rate than Chicago, despite the fact that you can carry a gun there without a license.

A Decade is a Long Time To Blog

SayUncle is ten years old. I’ll be surprised if I can make it that long, at least with the blog in its current form. This has been more of a hobby for me, and to be honest, I think blogging the politics of the gun issue is a bit too audience limiting to grow readership much beyond where it’s at now. The future is probably writing about guns and shooting, especially considering all the people getting into shooting these days.

Final Night of the DNC

There were two things about the conventions that I think were definitely true. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama needs to make the ~~sales pitch~~ speech of their lives. Mitt Romney did, and Barack Obama droned on with the same crap I’ve been hearing for the past four years. He was definitely upstaged by Bill Clinton. Hell, he was upstaged by Joe Biden! Biden actually delivered a much better speech than I thought. Fortunately for the Democrats, when Biden is scripted, he’s good. It’s when he goes off script that all kinds of stupid crap come out of his mouth.

I can remember a co-worker of mine back in 2008, one who is not particularly conservative and did not come from this country, say “That guy is an empty suit, if I ever saw one.” I can remember back to the DNC in 2004, thinking he delivered a great speech to the convention, and wondering why the Democrats were running Kerry instead of this Obama guy. But Obama is an empty suit. His talent is delivering one speech well. Sure, there are variations on that speech, but once you hear a few of them, they all sound the same.

CNET Coverage on 3D Printing Guns

I don’t really read CNET anymore, but I think it’s still popular among some IT people who have been around for a while. So it’s interesting they are covering 3D printing and guns. I’m pleased with that, because the more this gets around, the more people will start talking about gun control as dead letter. It’s simply been obsoleted by technology as a workable concept.

Two Technological Pet Peeves

You know computer pattern recognition has to be getting pretty good, because the latest trend seems to be CAPTCHA that is so convoluted that I can’t read it either. It’s annoying enough that, while I hardly comment on blogs at all anymore, I really am loathe to comment on blogspot blogs, because I usually have to try the CAPTCHA two or three times before I actually get it right. I think the usefulness of CAPTCHA is probably getting close to nearing its end, and we’re going to find some better tests to tell computers from humans.

The second technological pet peeve is with web designers, who always seem to be looking for new an innovative ways to ruin the experience. I find myself saying or thinking “No, I don’t want to download your f**king app, just let me through to your site!” way too often these days. Anyone who does a lot of browsing on mobile devices today likely know exactly what I’m talking about. One of the chief philosophies of the Web was supposed to be platform neutrality, but I suppose since mobile browsing has largely been successful murdering Flash (a self-defense killing if you ask me) there had to be some new way for bad web designers to crap all over things.