Saturday, July 09, 2016

A Modest Proposal for Smart Guns

Allen West has a nifty proposal which may potentially resolve two issues:

1.  What do we do with "Smart Guns"?   It's untested technology; nobody trusts it.
2.  How do we arm our "friendlies" in the Middle East ... who change shirts at will?

EVERYBODY (almost) is touting the benefits of "Smart Guns", which cannot be fired by anyone except the 'registered owner'.  Some folks want Americans to put the lives of their families at risk by depending on this untested technology.

Americans have lined up to say "UH ... I DON'T THINK SO!"

One of the issues is that Americans love their country but fear their government;
"The Feds" can turn off the functionality of a 'Smart Gun' at will, because it's all electronics and NSA has the premier control in this world of electronic data transfer.

At the same time, we are arming our 'friendlies' in the Middle East, but we don't trust them all that much either.

Instead of imposing Smart Guns on the American People, why don't we give them to our allies?

The Real Issue of Gun Control - Allen West:
(July 06, 2016)
Both Afghanistan and Iraqi Defense Forces have difficulty determining the sympathies and loyalties of new recruits. Aware of these concerns, Florida-based Trigger Smart has now developed and patented a smart gun system that can remotely enable and disable weapons using wireless technology on the military field.  
While technology alone cannot replace proper vetting practices, smart-gun technologies can potentially mitigate the risk that our troops face. Equipping our ally soldiers with RFID-secured weapons, paired with wide-area control technology, can ensure that only authorized personnel can operate their assigned weapon. Weapons can be enabled and disabled by U.S. advisors whose military forces will designate safe zones throughout outposts and operating bases.

Tee hee hee

I can only imagine the Middle-Eastern turncoats who point guns at American 'advisers', only to discover that "The Furschlinger Gun Doesn't Work!"

(I don't know how to say that in Farsi.)

This is probably the best idea I've heard in years.

In the words of Andy Rooney: "Hey Kids, I've got an idea ... let's put on a show!"

Cop Killer Jacket?

NYPD checking ammo after knife wielder’s jacket stops cops’ bullets | New York Post:
(May 19, 2016)
Four of the shots that cops fired at a madman waving a knife in Midtown failed to penetrate his jacket — which was not bulletproof — and the NYPD will now check the weapons for malfunction, law enforcement sources told The Post. “The bullets we have may be defective and that’s very disturbing,” one source said. “When we fire our weapons, we want to make damn sure that our bullets hit our target — neutralizing our target.”
That's odd, isn't it?  Maybe the NYPD should interview the 'madman' and get the name of his tailor?
That tailor could make a fortune!

Actually, Lucky Gunner ran a test last year, which they called "The Heavy Clothing Test".   They found that even light clothing might offer significant protection from pistol caliber bullets:

The heavy clothing test simulates a scenario in which the target is wearing four layers of clothing: two cotton shirts, fleece, and denim. The FBI uses this standard not because it’s common for people to actually wear that exact clothing, but because they are common clothing materials, and when combined they represent something close to a worst case scenario for a bullet.
Clothing can present a challenge for some hollow point loads because the opening in the bullet can become clogged with clothing material and fail to expand once it reaches living tissue. This failure to expand gives the bullet a lower probability of striking a vital area, and also leads to the potential for over-penetration. Expanding bullets lose velocity quickly and are more likely to stay inside the target, but a hollow point that fails to expand can maintain enough energy to exit the target and potentially harm bystanders.
We used the same type of fabric specified in the FBI heavy clothing test, which calls for the following:
  1. cotton t-shirt material (approximately 5.25 ounces per yard, 48 threads per inch)
  1. cotton shirt material (approximately 3.5 ounces per yard, 80 threads per inch)
  1. Malden Mills Polartec 200 fleece
  1. cotton denim (approximately 14.4 ounces per yard, 50 threads per inch)
The four layers of fabric were stacked together and placed against the front of the gelatin block, secured with clothes pins to a bar suspended above the test block

What they discovered surprised them:  even a 'cotton t-shirt' offered some (and in some ways significant) resistance to penetration, especially by a hollow-point bullet.    Not that any of the ammunition tested failed to penetrate, but their tests showed that penetration of the body cavity, wound channels and expansion of the bullets were all affected by the cloth which which the 'target' (ballistic gel) was 'protected'.

Which is interesting, but still doesn't answer the question of WHY the NYPD's bullets did not (according to the article) even penetrate the clothing!

The cops are blaming "the bullets", by which one assumes they're talking about the ammunition, not necessarily the bullets themselves.  And they might have something there.

How often to they fire to qualify?  How often do they replace their ammuition .. you know, the stuff they actually load in their pistols?  

It's true that ammunition deteriorates over time; and gunpowder deteriorates quicker, if exposed to air and moisture.  

To suggest that these cops were carrying ammunition so old that even factory ammunition would lose effectiveness is ... well, mind-boggling.

I don't know what the NYPD Commissioner of Police is going to do about that, but he might take a few 'first steps' just in case:

(1)  Every cop on the force turns in his current ammunition ... or better yet, is required to shoot it on the practice range, and their scores are recorded;
(2) Every cop on the force is issued brand new ammunition;
(3) Every cop on the force is required to qualify twice a year, using his issued ammunition (ALL OF IT!) and is then issued new, fresh ammunition.
(4) The 'issued ammunition', as soon as it is purchased, is tested (random sample) for penetration of ballistic gel under various items of clothing, and also material such as cardboard, wallboard, and glass.

Because the cops on the beat might very well be correct .... there may be something wrong with their "bullets".   It may simply be that the ammunition is not expended in practice and has not been replaced in years.

Nah .. I don't really believe that.  It takes a long time for sealed ammunition to deteriorate to the point where it won't penetrate a denim jacket!   And police are required to qualify with their issued sidearm annually; surely they use their issued ammunition, and are then issued fresh ammunition.

I'm not about to suggest that the cops gunfire didn't actually hit the target.  That assumes that the cops can't hit what they aim at .. and that would be just silly!

Everybody know, police are the only ones qualified to engage criminals in gunfights, because cops are so well trained and stuff.

.Civilians are the people we don't trust to handle a firearm in a gunfight.  (Except for Criminals, of course!   They always have the best guns, best gear, fresh ammo and they practice ALL THE TIME!)


Friday, July 08, 2016

The staggering myths about gun control

When I'm feeling a little down, or bored, I know I can always get a quick "Pick Me Up" by reading SALON!

I'm coming down from the Independence Day Frenzy, so I'm grateful for this innervating article from Salon:  I'm ready to wrestle grizzly bears!
But I'll have to settle for the pathetic liars who appear on my computer screen.

“A uniquely American tragedy“: The staggering myths about gun control - Salon.com:
(July 02, 2016)
The issue of guns in America causes people in other parts of the developed world to look at our country and shake their heads. They just don’t get it. They don’t understand why so many Americans have such passion for their guns. They don’t understand why gun control is such a contentious issue. Most of all, they don’t understand how America can tolerate its chronic carnage of deaths and injuries from gunfire, particularly among our children and particularly after the horror of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 in which 20 first graders and six adults lost their lives. American children ages five to fourteen are eighteen times more likely to die of a gun homicide and eleven times more likely to die of a gun suicide than children in twenty-two other high-income countries.
May I say this:
"They don’t understand why gun control is such a contentious issue."
Because IT DOESN'T WORK!

In 1994 Congress imposed a Draconian Federal Assault Weapons Ban which only passed because the Republicans insisted that it would be given a ten-year trial, and if it was not found to reduce firearms crime it would be deleted.   It imposed every restrictions the Anti-Gun people could think of, and in 2004 it was deleted by the "Sunset Clause" because it only imposed upon honest gun owners and had little (sometimes a 'negative') effect on firearms crime.

The Task Force on Community Preventive Services, an independent, non-federal task force, examined an assortment of firearms laws, including the AWB, and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence."[25] A 2004 critical review of firearms research by a National Research Council committee said that an academic study of the assault weapon ban "did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence outcomes." The committee noted that the study's authors said the guns were used criminally with relative rarity before the ban and that its maximum potential effect on gun violence outcomes would be very small
In other words, it was a stupid idea then and it's still a stupid idea today ... even though a new generation of politicians have chosen to ignore history in favor of political rhetoric.

But you won't read that in the Salon article.

Instead, you'll read that the NRA STOMPED ALL OVER CONGRESS AND FORCED THEM TO BACK DOWN:
What is truly astounding is that the NRA is able to block the enactment of legislation that is spectacularly popular with the American people. Reinstating the ten-year ban on AK-47s, UZIs, and other military-style assault weapons, enacted in 1994, enjoyed the support of 78 percent of the American people, with only 16 percent opposed, when Congress, under NRA pressure, allowed it to lapse.

No, I'm not going to fisk the entire article, but may I point out that the author devotes the opening paragraph to an entirely emotional approach to "(t)he issue of guns in America"?

Thursday, July 07, 2016

You Tube Choices

I always have difficult choices to make when I want to watch YouTube.

I can't decide between:


  • Whose Line Is It?
  • Congressman Gowdy And Bengazzi/Hillary/Whatever
  • Guess who killed their kid in what horrible manner
  • Dean Martin Roasts Another Alcoholic Actor
  • Bill O'Reily : Why Republicans Don't Like Democrats (or vice versa)
  • Insane Person Attacks Family Member With Horrible Consequences
  • Bernie Sanders Refuses To Concede .. Just Like Yesterday
  • Charges Brought Against Men Seen In Moose Riding Video
Could it be I have too much time on my hands?  Or am I just ... "Too Particular"?

Or has the Internet become as trite as Network Television?



"Competition Will Get You Killed" (Oh, not THIS again!)

Is it that time of the year again?  Already?

Okay, NJT brought it up, so let's look at this misunderstanding again:
New Jovian Thunderbolt: Never understood that:
Never understood that The sentiment that "If you do handgun competitions, that is too much game and will get you killed in real life so don't ever do that!" What? I never understood that worry. Yeah, the whole when to reload and how, &c.and what have you might cement habits not ideal in every 'tactical' situation. I can see that part of the argument. But so what?
I never understood that mind-set either.   The best I can do is go back to an article (under the title I've used) which was published in a gun magazine a decade or two ago.   And people who have little or no understanding of what you can learn from competition 'heard that' from someone, and believed it.

I don't think they're talking about rifle and shotgun competition, not any kind of bulls-eye shooting, but 'action pistol' shooting such as IDPA and USPSA (IPSC).
(If you read the linked NJT article above, there's a link to an article from Lucky Gunner which provides a better detailed description.)

Here's the thing:  Competition isn't possible without training and experience.  Even without training, when you shoot an Action Pistol Match you need to know the rules and you need to be able do demonstrate Good Gun-Handling Techniques.

The rules are important for the match; the techniques are vital for self-defense.

TRAINING IS THE KEY

People who criticize "competition" as being either unrealistic or impractical seem to miss the point.

 Competition provides many opportunities for both training and experience which most shooters are unlikely to garner in any other venue.  Sure, you can spend hundreds of dollars taking 'professional' courses (most of which teach you to react to a combat situation) but does that really provide them the opportunity to PRACTICE their gun-handling techniques under the pressure of time and necessity?

And since when is it necessary to grow a beard and wear green pants to learn to handle your pistol well enough that you can shoot accurately and consistently under pressure?

Lots of people teach courses in competition (I'm one of them) and the virtues of that training is that they teach you practical techniques and practices.   When you go to an IPSC or IDPA match, you get to EXPERIENCE the effect of either knowing the techniques, or not knowing the techniques.  If you don't know how to handle your pistol safely and effectively, the feedback is immediate:
That cute little blonde girl is going to kick your ass in the finals, and your friends will laugh at you.
(And you're going to practice more, and better!)

The pressure of competing under pressure, and comparing your performance against other shooters, is perhaps the best feedback to your training regimen you can find; and it's difficult to imagine a venue which might provide a comparable benefit.

SAFETY IS THE PRIORITY: COMPETENCE IS THE EXPECTATION
People shoot competitively for many reasons:
  • learn gun-handling techniques
  • learn the rules, practices and procedures of  'action pistol'.competition
  • get some range time with good targets and actual, interesting stages
  • meet new friends with similar interests, and share experiences
What they discover is that they learn things they never expected.   Training is available, if not in private classes then at least during matches from more 'experienced' competitors.   We correct their grip, and the proper placement of their finger on the trigger. We teach them how to draw from a holster, how to reload from the belt, and how to safely move from one shooting position to another.   When someone violates a safety rule during the Live Fire Exercises, the rest of the class learns from their mistakes.

We learn the three kinds of Immediate Action Drills in response to the three basic kinds of firearms malfunctions:


  • Stovepipe


  • Tap/Rack/Bang (failure to feed: didn't seat your magazine properly during load/reload)


  • The Jam From Hell (another feeding failure)


  • IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER what kind of 'action pistol shooting' you do, there are always going to be some range safety rules, and some competition rules, which don't seem to apply to a self-defense situation.   IDPA teaches you to use cover and concealment and ammunition retention because these are specific DEFENSIVE PISTOL TECHNIQUES which you need to at least be aware of.  You may lose your head (zone out) in an emergency, but at least you have learned the drills and this is going to be an asset on 'the worst day of your life'.


    In USPSA we do fire a lot more rounds per match and that may provide you with more opportunities to practice your reload, refine your grip and trigger-finger placement, and every round you fire for score is probably going to provide more effective training than taking yourself to the range for an hour a month and only practicing the things that you're already 'good at'.  

    PRACTICE is an issue with most folks.  We don't know what to do in practice, so we do the things we already do well, because (a) we don't know any better and (b) it's fun.

    When you engage in competition, you learn quickly and quite well what you do NOT do well!

    Can you reload quickly without taking your eyes off the target?  Can you keep track of the rounds you have expended, and know when you need to reload, without thinking about it?   Can you engage a wide variety of targets at varying ranges?  Can you move laterally, forward, or retreat to a new shooting position ... all without losing situational awareness (and maybe performing a reload on the move)?  

    Can you engage targets from a prone, kneeling or standing position, or shoot around a corner from cover or concealment?   Can you hit targets which are moving?   Can you hit targets while YOU are moving? Can you consistently hit small steel targets at 7 yards?  Can you double-tap three targets at 10 yards, perform a reload, and hit them again in under 10 seconds?   Can you accurately engage targets with either hand?

    ALL of these techniques are commonly practiced in Action Shooting Competition.

    Anyone who thinks that Competition just means standing in only place and plunking round after round into a bullseye target sitting placidly 50 feet downrange does not understand the full concept of Competition Shooting.

    You may get killed, but it won't be because you've been honing your skills by competing in pistol matches.


    Wednesday, July 06, 2016

    "Arming America" - Bellisles

    People who want to undermine your Second Amendment Rights will lie to do it.
    Even the best of them.
    And I can prove it.
    For example, this bit appeared over 8 years ago:
    Cogito Ergo Geek: 43:
    [March, 2008]
    43 That number seems to haunt us, we who own guns and profess that they are a valuable tool for sport, competition, self-defense and other legitimate purposes.. We see it quoted time and again, and yet how many of us are as aware of the significance of that number as are the liberal gun-grabbers . They use that number time and time again as a mantra to define how horrid is the state of owning firearms for self defense.
    This is a quote from an article which appeared on this website in 2008.  It was originally intended to debunk the assertions (since disproven) by Arthur Kellerman that :
    Guns kept in the home for self-protection are 43 times more likely to kill a family member, friend or acquaintance than to kill an intruder, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine
    I won't go into the details of why, how or by whom this assertion was debunked: you can go to my original article here and read the whole thing.  Essentially, Kellerman made up his statistics from whole cloth; he was caught at it and discredited by more honest, reputable historians who were NOT trying to skew historic facts to justify their personal anti-gun bias.

    But there are other historians, besides Kellerman, who just cannot resist the temptation to lie to you under the cloth of their scholarly reputation; and when caught in that lie, lose their reputation.

    My intention today is to high-light the self-destroyed reputation of a liar named Bellesiles, who claimed that (based on his review of probated wills, etc. from the colonial period), Americans hardly EVER had anything to do with firearms!

    Yes, this is another scholar .. an historian ...  (who enjoyed a good reputation before he made up facts to suit his personal political bias) who lied, and was caught at it.

    I had written an article referencing Bellesiles in 2003, but thanks to the wonder of BLOGGER that link is no longer available.  I wonder how unkind I was to him then?
    I hope I was not as unkind as I will be today.


    Here is the story of The Bias of Bellesiles.


    POINT:

    (From a 2000 GOODREADS review of Bellesiles' book: "The Arming Of America")

    In Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, Emory University historian Michael A. Bellesiles leaps to the forefront of a recent move by scholars toward reexamining this mythology of the gun. To every article of the legend, Bellesiles mounts a relentless and eye-opening barrage of counterevidence, gathered over ten years of research in probate records, censuses, government and military documents, and other primary sources.
     From the first settlements up until the Civil War, ordinary Americans were not heavily armed and were generally neglectful of the guns they did own. Guns of the time were expensive, clumsy, unreliable, and hard to maintain. Opposing other historians' claims for nearly universal gun ownership among the settlers, Bellesiles finds that apparently "at no time prior to 1850 did more than a tenth of the people own guns."
    During the Revolutionary War, the civilian militias were, again contrary to myth, ineffective on the whole as a fighting force. One basic reason: The great majority of their members had never bothered to arm themselves or attain proficiency in shooting. After the war was won by professionals, the government labored for the next 70 years to arm a surprisingly resistant citizenry.
    COUNTERPOINT: Amazing Disgrace
    Bellesiles has a certain claim to fame, certainly, but not as “the target of an infamous ‘swiftboating’ campaign.” He is, and will be forever remembered as, a historian whose colleagues found him to have violated his profession's standards of scholarly integrity. Arming America won the Bancroft Prize -- the highest honor for a book on American history. But far more salient is the fact that the Bancroft committee took the unprecedented step of withdrawing the prize.
    It is true that he drew the ire of the National Rifle Association, and I have no inclination to give that organization's well-funded demagogy the benefit of any doubt. But gun nuts did not force Bellesiles to do sloppy research or to falsify sources. That his scholarship was grossly incompetent on many points is not a "controversial" notion. Nor is it open to dispute whether or not he falsified sources. That has been exhaustively documented by his peers. To pretend otherwise is itself demagogic.
    COUNTERPOINT: WIKIPEDIA

    In [two] scholarly articles,[15][16] law professor James Lindgren of Northwestern University noted that in Arming America, Bellesiles had
    • purported to count guns in about a hundred wills from 17th- and 18th-century Providence, Rhode Island, but these did not exist because the decedents had died intestate (i.e., without wills);
    • purported to count nineteenth-century San Francisco County probate inventories, but these had been destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire;
    • reported a national mean for gun ownership in 18th-century probate inventories that was mathematically impossible;
    • misreported the condition of guns described in probate records in a way that accommodated his thesis;
    • miscited the counts of guns in nineteenth-century Massachusetts censuses and militia reports,
    • had more than a 60% error rate in finding guns listed as part of estates in Vermont records; and
    • had a 100% error rate in the cited gun-related homicide cases of seventeenth-century Plymouth, MA.
    Critics also identified problems with Bellesiles's methods of citation. Cramer noted that Bellesiles had misrepresented a passage by George Washington about the quality of three poorly prepared militia units as if his criticism applied to the militia in general. (Washington had noted that the three units were exceptions to the rule.)[17] 
    (Note that Clayton Cramer's blog appears regulary today)

    ARTICLE (January 06, 2003) by Clayton Cramer on The History NewsNetwork

    Michael A. Bellesiles’s Bancroft Prize for Arming America has been revoked—the first time that a Bancroft Prize has ever been taken away from an author.[1] He has also resigned from Emory University after a blistering criticism by a blue-ribbon panel.[2] Is this embarrassing moment for the history profession a fluke, or indicative of deeper problems?
    I fear that it isn’t a fluke. Arming America reveals that there are some very serious problems in the history professorate, and they are not confined to just one history professor’s demonstration of hubris.
    - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1185#sthash.IA7OusWG.dpuf
     Cramer Article continues (in part):

    My first reaction after reading the first few chapters was a mixture of “There’s a logical flaw here” and “What? Could this possibly be true?” When I reached chapters that covered periods that I knew well—the early Republic—my incredulity increased. Then I started to find Bellesiles using quotations from travel accounts that I had read—and the quotations didn’t match either my memory of them, or the texts, when I re-read them.
    I sat down with a list of bizarre, amazing claims that Bellesiles had made, and started chasing down the citations at Sonoma State University’s library. I found quotations of out of context that completely reversed the author’s original intent. I found dates changed. I found the text of statutes changed—and the changes completely reversed the meaning of the law. It took me twelve hours of hunting before I found a citation that was completely correct. In the intervening two years, I have spent thousands of hours chasing down Bellesiles’s citations, and I have found many hundreds of shockingly gross falsifications.
    - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1185#sthash.IA7OusWG.dpuf

    SUMMARY:   BELLESILES LIED!
    When the flurry died down, it had become obvious to researchers that Bellesiles had quoted sources ...  wills and testaments which were patently not available, partly because of widespread flooding which had destroyed a pletohra of historical documents in the basement of the library which he cited as his primary source ,,, and also whole-clothedly misquoted documents which remained available to other historians; if they cared to look!

    Fortunately, Cramer cared, and looked, and reported.   Again from the same  HISTORYNEWSNETWORK source:
    Clayton Cramer, a historian, software engineer, gun enthusiast and early critic of Bellesiles, later argued that the reason "why historians swallowed Arming America's preposterous claims so readily is that it fit into their political worldview so well... Arming America said things, and created a system of thought so comfortable for the vast majority of historians, that they didn’t even pause to consider the possibility that something wasn’t right."[4] Historian Peter Charles Hoffer, an advocate of gun control, lent support to Cramer's charge when, in a 2004 examination of the Bellesiles case, he noted that influential members of the historical profession had "taken strong public stands on violence in our society and its relation to gun control."[5] For instance, the academics solicited for blurbs by Bellesiles’ publisher Alfred A. Knopf "were ecstatic in part because the book knocked the gun lobby."[6]Bellesiles energized this professional consensus by attempting to play "the professors against the NRA in a high-wire act of arrogant bravado."[7] For instance, he replied to Heston’s criticism by telling the actor to earn a Ph.D. before criticizing the work of scholars.[8] He pointed out that Cramer was "a long time advocate of unrestricted gun ownership" while he was a scholar who had "certain obligations of accuracy that transcend current political benefit."[9] After Bellesiles claimed he had been flooded by hate mail, both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians endorsed a resolution condemning the alleged harassment.[10] As Hoffer later wrote, Bellesiles was convinced that whether the entire profession agreed with “his stance on gun ownership (and I suspect most did), surely academic historians would not let their expertise be impugned by a rank and partisan amateur like Cramer.” [11]

    NB personal from this writer: The disappointment of scholars seems not to be so much  that Bellesiles' publications played the professors against the NRA, as it is that he was clumsy at it. Second Amendment Advocates are accustomed to being lied about by academics; professorial knee-jerk reaction against Constitional rights are commonplace. We are accustomed to it, consider the source (academians, insulated from the real world), and we dismiss their "ivory tower" pronouncements ... as is reasonable, logical, right and proper.  I'm amazed that you criticized Bellesiles!
    Well, you didn't actually disagree with him, did you?  You merely thought his research was poorly documented.
    And so in the end, when he was caught with his professorial pants down, Bellesiles chose not to defend his academic accuracy, but to attack his accuser; Cramer.

    JUST LIKE KELLERMAN, Bellesiles used shoddy research techniques, exagerated the results, lied when the data didn't match his thesis, and in the end proved himself indefensible by the ageless schoolyard retort:  

    DID NOT!

    Unfortunately, Wikipedia provides the death-knell to Bellesiles' career:
    Historians who initially admired Arming America ceased to defend Bellesiles. The nationally prominent historian Garry Wills, who had enthusiastically reviewed Arming America for the New York Times,[25] later said, in a 2005 interview on C-SPAN, "I was took. The book is a fraud." Wills noted that Bellesiles "claimed to have consulted archives he didn't and he misrepresented those archives," although "he didn't have to do that," since "he had a lot of good, solid evidence." Wills added, "People get taken by very good con men."[26]Historian Roger Lane, who had reviewed the book positively in the Journal of American History,[27] offered a similar opinion: "It is entirely clear to me that he's made up a lot of these records. He's betrayed us. He's betrayed the cause. It's 100 percent clear that the guy is a liar and a disgrace to my profession. He's breached that trust."[28] Historian Pauline Maier reflected that it seemed historians had "ceased to read carefully and critically, even in the awarding of book prizes."[29]
    Good Bye,  Michael A. Bellesiles, PHD, Liar.  See ya!  Glad I don't have to Be Ya!
    (How's that  job at MacDonald's working out for you?)


    Monday, July 04, 2016

    Death of the founding fathers - Jul 04, 1826

    Death of the founding fathers - Jul 04, 1826 - HISTORY.com:

    John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, respectively, die on this day, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Both men had been central in the drafting of the historic document; Jefferson had authored it, and Adams, who was known as the “colossus of the debate,” served on the drafting committee and had argued eloquently for the declaration’s passage.
    Incidently, I have been watching the Seven-part miniseries "John Adams" (on 3 DVD discs), which was presented by HBO in 2008.   I highly recommend it.  It was based on the book by David McCullough.

    Fourth Of July

    Independence Day
    Full of Sound and Fury
    Because America



    Click on FULL SCREEN! (You Know You Wanna!)

    Happy Geek Independence Day!

    This didn't have to happen

    Father Accidentally Kills Teenage Son at Florida Gun Range - NBC News:
    July 04, 2016 6:01pm ET
    A 14-year-old boy was fatally shot by his father at a gun range in Sarasota, Florida, Sunday, according to police. 
    William Brumby, 64, was at High Noon Gun Range when he shot his son, Stephen Brumby, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office. The boy was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital shortly after 3 p.m., but died there of his injuries.
    Witness accounts and surveillance video revealed that a shell casing had ricocheted into the elder Brumby's shirt, police said.When he went to pluck it out, using the hand in which he was holding a loaded handgun, he accidentally pulled the trigger and shot the son who was standing behind him, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.


    I can only don't want to imagine how that man must feel.