Smells Fishy

When I was a kid, during the summers that I visited him, I would go fishing with my dad a lot. I have a lot of great memories of spending hours early in the morning terrorizing fish. A few special times, I would go fishing with him on a boat.

Once it was with a friend who had a really small boat - about 22 feet making it small for the Pacific Ocean. A few other times was on charter boats out of Westport, Washington.

These were always good times even when the fishing was lousy and I was more focused on feeding the fish what I had for breakfast than actually catching them. Whenever we caught a fish, any fish big enough and was good eating, we would land it, kill it, clean it, and eat it.

Last weekend marked the end of my trips to the Seattle area for a while and I decided to go fishing once again. I called my dad, we met in Olympia, and pooled down to Westport. We stayed in a "resort" and went out at really early o' clock the next morning.

(It was a resort in name and price only. Had it been anywhere else it would struggle with the words "motor inn and bait shop.")

After spending about three hours on the water catching makerel (lousy taste and we already had enough bait) I landed the first salmon. There were nine of us fishing plus two crew - one of which was also fishing. I was moderately pleased with how the day was going. I caught the first fish and I had certainly had worse days on the ocean.

Then the next three fish were caught all within ten minutes of each other. A few were bigger than the one I had caught. No big deal. I still had another one to catch on my license and could still win the derby.

Then the crew threw each and every one of them back into the water.

I was incredulous. They were good looking fish. They were tasty looking fish. Coho silver salmon are good eating. Now all that meat was swimming away as fast as all of their silly fins could carry them.

My lone fish was still hanging out by himself in the hold.

I asked the crew what had just happened. They told me the fish were not legal. My dad - dad has a sense of humor that cannot be described in polite conversation - produced a box cutter and said, "We can make them legal!"

I still did not understand.

Everyone then explained that for a salmon to be a "legal catch" it must have had its second dorsal fin removed. Apparently they do not use them. This begs the question, "How is its dorsal fin removed?"

The dorsal fin is severed from the fish before it leaves the hatchery. In other words, no wild salmon may be kept. Only those from the hatchery and only those that have been marked. Apparently, the hatchery only marks 40 percent of the fish they release.

This to me seems to be among the silliest of regulations to come along in a long time. Hatchery salmon swim upstream and spawn as the wild ones do.

If the limit is two, what difference does it make if the fish are wild or not?

This restricts the fish kept to an artificial limit for what appears to be no good purpose. What does it serve to have them die on the beach during the next red tide? What if the game commission - or whoever controls the hatcheries - decides not to release or mark as many?

While there may be some scientific reason for all of this, it appears to be nothing more than environmentalism set on destroying the liesure time of everyone.

Dad's Response

I asked my dad this question from Difficult Question Time (I).

His response was more measured than mine. He would not kill the intruder, at least at first. He would waste no time. He said that he would sink the butt of the pistol an inch into the intruders skull, effectively knocking him unconscious and, at a minimum, requiring a long hospital stay. He would then check on his daughter.

If his daughter was hurt, or being hurt, in any way, he would not kill the other intruder if he could help it but similarly wound him. Before anything else, he would then find any others and do the same.

Had his daughter been hurt, he would first make arrangements for her care (hospital if necessary or bandage if she had a knife held to her throat but was not molested in any other fashion).

He would then have at the intruders in ways that would make the most ruthless inquistors look more like Christmas carolers.

As much as I would like to exact my revenge in a gruesome manner, I think that I would still just shoot all of them on site.

Knowing my dad, I have no problem believing that he would take his time. Ya gotta love him.

Difficult Question Time III

Reading this article from a link from Kim's site, I had to ask myself, "What do I think I would do?"

Here is the scenario:

You happen upon a group of ten girls attacking a lone girl. All of the girls, the ten and the one, are between fourteen and seventeen years of age. As part of the attack, they are kicking her on the ground and cutting her face with a broken bottle.


The questions:

What would you do to stop it?
What if stopping them meant certain injury to you?
What if stopping them meant having to seriously injure them?
What if you are in England and stopping them means that you will be injured, you will have to injure at least one of them, and then you will be arrested (you know that you will be prior to intervening) by the British police and jailed by their legal system?


If your answer to the first question is "nothing" I do not wish to know you.

I know how I have reacted in the past. I once happened upon three men jumping another from behind him in a Taco Bell parking lot. I broke the fight. To do so, I jumped in the fray, threw one of the men to the ground and another away from his victim. This was before I was a Marine. I had no intention of hurting any of them.

For my efforts, the intended victim was left mostly unhurt and I received a concussion.

My best friend, who saw one standing behind me hit me in the back of the head, ran out of the restaurant and started to punch that one in the head. His friends attacked mine from behind and kicked him to the ground and then kicked his head leaving some lacerations and contusions.


I like to think that now I would injure the assailants sufficiently to incapacitate them. If, in order to keep a fourteen year old girl from stabbing another in the face with a broken bottle, I had to to gouge her eyes, I would.

I hope I am never in that situation. I do not think that the British have much hope in that regard though.

Adding to the Inventory

So tonight I went shooting with seven other people. One was my regular shooting buddy in the Seattle area. Another was the Ghanaian I had taken shooting about six weeks ago. The rest are as follows:

1 x Island Girl (from Guam / never shot previously)
1 x Asianese Girl (originally from China but was raised from infancy in the Pacific Northwest / shot a few times previously / engaged to...)
1 x Asianese Guy (from Hawaii / also shot previously / will now be buying a gun)
1 x Washatonianesian (gun collector and occasional shooter), and
1 x Microsoft Employee (never fired a handgun but had shot .22 rifles and shotguns as a boy / teen)

I know I have exceeded my own quota but fortunately, that quota is not for a maximum but a minimum.

The downside to today's post is that the shooting team for my daughter's school is likely not going to come to fruition because of the costs involved. If anyone knows of a *very* reasonably priced rifle / trap / skeet range in the Frisco / Plano, TX area, please let me know. The closest I have found is in Garland and it may still cost too much. I need to see if they will offer a yearly rate. I also need to find bulk, surplus twenty guage ammunition for the kidlets. I can carry the cost of .22LR.

In the mean time take someone shooting, teach a kid to shoot, and keep the shots in the black.

Haiku

I saw this on a shirt at the Ft Worth museum today:


Haikus are easy
But sometimes do not make sense
refrigerator

Marketing Department

Say you are in a marketing department of a firearms / ammunition / related industry company. Say you had to use existing slogans / logos. What logos would you use for your products?

Speer ammunition: Oh what a feeling!
Barrett rifles: Reach out and touch someone.
Merkel rifles: Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.
S&W 500: Strength On Your Side.
Bond Arms derringers: Don't leave home without it.
Glock pistols: The choice of a new generation.
Pretty much any pistol: It's In Your Hand.
Mossberg 500: Security Made simple.
M249 SAW: Do More.
Winchester SXT +P+: When you care enough to send the very best.


I will have to add more later.

Not Quite

I was once told that no one needs more than three million dollars. This was 1997 so figure another million or so for inflation for today's figure. The man who had said that had actually in the military too.

Of course that was all nonsense.

Ignoring the socialist / communist aspects of it, it is still very inaccurate.

If someone is content to work a "9 to 5" then wishes to come home to an apartment or small house and watch T.V. until bed, he does not even need that much. If he intends to do that in his retirement, he should target around one million dollars in today's figures. That would comfortable give him enough for rent, food, cable, etc.

If he is going to take care of someone else - e.g. a wife or a parent - he will need about $400,000 more. Add a bit to that if there are extra medical bills involved.

If he is going to pay for private tuition for his children, live in a house on a golf course, and take an annual trip across an ocean, he should work to get at least two million if the house is already paid.

If he is going to fund a private space expedition, well then, he will need a bit more.

Needles in Haystacks

...or barbs in strawmen as the case may be.

This is a continuation following up the last post. After reading about the dangers guns pose to kidlets, I came across this one about the wimmen folk also from the Brady site.

This one is so poorly presented that the required lapses in logic are beyond even my most irrational rantings. (I hope you enjoyed that last sentence as much as I did.)

I will first examine the opening sentence.

For years, the gun industry and gun lobby have perpetrated the myth that owning guns will protect women from violent crime.

I think this is incorrect. I cannot conclusively say that none from the gun industry or lobby has claimed that owning guns will protect women from violent crime. I do know that many have claimed using guns against violent criminals has protected them.

Myth: Guns protect women from gun violence.

Again, the wording is poor. It should read, "Using guns protects women from violence." Also notice the change of gun violence to just violence. As I have stated, the Brady Campaign seems set in their belief that gun violence is somehow worse than other violence.

Fact: Rates of female homicide, suicide and unintentional firearm death are
disproportionately higher in states where guns are more prevalent.

This might be correct but lacks substantive data. I checked its source and while it references other data, it is not available to the public at large. For it to be meaningful, it would have to be proven that the presense of firearms is the cause for higher suicide rates. The researchers themselves state that the evidence is circumstantial.

Fact: In the US, regions with higher levels of handgun ownership have higher suicide rates. Although women have higher rates of depression than men, it is the handgun-suicide connection, rather than depression, that accounts for higher suicide rates.

It also does not mention the attempted suicide rates as a whole. I have no problem believing that there are more "successful" suicides when guns are used. This still however begs the question, "If some other agent where used when committing suicide that were more prevalent, would it not be just as bad?"

Myth: Handgun ownership increases women’s ability to defend themselves.

Grammar mistakes aside... this should be worded, "Using handguns increases a women's ability to defend herself." Owning a handgun no more makes a person a good shooter than owning a set of golf clubs makes him a good golfer. It is important that should anyone choose to defend himself with a firearm, he should be proficient with it. This is especially important for women in general.

Fact: In 1998, women were 101 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to use a handgun to kill in self-defense. Women were 302 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to use a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense. Women were 83 times more likely to be murdered by an intimate acquaintance with a handgun than to kill an intimate acquaintance in self-defense.

I am not sure why this fact is being used. It is completely irrelevant to the purported myth. It might be important if it stated, "...women were 101 times more likely to be murdered with their own handgun than to use their own handgun to kill in self-dense." The same applies for the second and third sentences too. The fact that for every one woman who chooses to defend herself there are 101 who do not supports just the opposite. If those 101 others where carrying (and knew how to use their firearms) at the time of their murder, would they still have been murdered?

Fact: In the rare cases in which women do use guns in self-defense, it is most commonly against an attacker known to them.

So if they know their attackers, they should not be allowed to defend themselves? This is also completely irrelevant and if anything, supports the opposite.

Myth: Guns protect women from rape.

I will keep doing this as long as I must... It should read, "Using guns against rapists protect women." Once worded correctly, it is not a myth and is nearly indisputable.

Fact: Guns are rarely used by rapists - less than 2 percent of rapes are committed with guns, while almost 70 percent are committed with personal weapons (physical violence). Women would be safer knowing self-defense to fight off an attacker than using a gun which can easily be turned against them.

Why does it matter what rapists use? If rapists are not using guns, that is all the better for women who have (and are able to use) guns. I am sure that the definition of "personal weapons" and their relation to "(physical violence)" is riveting and worthy of discussion but that is not important to the subject at hand.

Excuse the tangent: If a woman is going to have a gun, she should be able to use the gun. This is the same with knowing self-defense. Being able to break a brick with her hand will not help her at all if she will not hit her attacker. However, she can be a fifth degree black belt and that will be of little use to her if she is attacked by several men at once. If those men have guns, she is as helpless as a 80 year old woman with bone cancer unless she is armed herself.

Myth: Women need guns to protect against stranger rape.

Women need to use guns against rapists whether they know them or not. A woman must decide what she can face the rest of her life. If she cannot perish the though of killing someone, she needs to be able to shoot to wound. This requires a deal of skill. She may better serve her interests by learning to "deal with the thought."

Fact: Stranger rape is not the greatest danger for women as most women (75 percent) are raped by offenders known to the victim. 60 percent of rapes are
committed against victims under the age of 18 who are forbidden by law to own a gun.

Whoever wrote this cannot even stay within the confines of his own argument. The fact that most women know their attackers does not address those who are raped by strangers. Given the last two "myths" I am unable to determine if the author deems it acceptable to use a gun in self-defense regardless of the situation. It seems as if he is saying, "You may not use a gun to defend yourself against either someone you know or someone you don't know." The message may as well be, "Carry a condom and hope he'll use it."

The latter part may just as well be used to justify lowering the age of those who may have (and use) firearms. This is something that I have been considering for sometime.

I believe that if parents are willing to take the responsibility, their children should be able to carry firearms. That is a post for another time though.

It still does not take into account the other 40 percent. This time it seems as if the author is saying, "Minors cannot defend themselves when they are raped so adults cannot either."


My message to women (and pretty much everyone) is thus: Defend yourselves and your families by any and every means necessary. Know how to use your hands, your knives, and your guns. Know that anything is a weapon that you may use and that may be used against you. If you are mentally unstable, take some responsibility and do what you must to protect yourself and your family - even if that means separating yourself from them for a while. Never let anyone dictate to you how to protect yourselves. Hope for the best in all situations but be prepared for the worst.

Would You Rather They'd Been Pushed out of Windows?

From our friends at the Brady Campaign comes these statistics. While the numbers may be accurate, they lack context and frame of reference skirt over the arguments for gun rights.

They do not say that it cannot be reprinted without permission but it is all public data from CDC anyway...

So let us take them one-by-one (data only goes to 2004):

• In 2004, 1,804 children and teenagers were murdered in gun homicides, 846 committed
suicide with guns, and 143 died in unintentional shootings. A total of 2,852 young people
were killed by firearms in the U.S., one every three hours.

They included the suicides here. Is it possible for one to murder himself? Germany and Japan both have very strict guns laws and higher suicide rates. Finland has laws almost as strict as Germany and their suicide rate is even higher. Also included are the children who were killed by their parents. The context that this lacks is the number - estimated of course - that would have been killed even had there been stricter gun laws or no guns at all. I disagree with including the suicides but even if you do, you must ask, "How many would have committed suicide by some other means?"

• In 2004, 82% of murder victims aged 13 to 19 years old were killed with a firearm.

Again, how many of these were suicides, killed by their parents, or would have been killed by any other means? Just because they were killed with a gun does not mean that they would still be alive. It may also mean that they had a relatively quick and less painful death compared to others that they might have suffered.

• During 2004, 55% of all murders of those under age 18 in the U.S. involved firearms.

So, looking at the last two stats, ages one through twelve and nineteen are pretty dangerous firearm years? Same as the last statistic, without the other numbers, this is meaning less. If there were only 100 children murdered and 55 were with firearms, it would still be the same percentage and no more or less a basis for banning guns.

• Firearms are the second-leading cause of death (after motor vehicle accidents) for young
people 19 and under in the U.S.

Firearms are not a "cause of death." They can be a used to cause death but require something else, such as someone pulling a trigger. They correctly state that motor vehicle accidents are a cause. To be consistent, they need to say that firearm accidents or homicides are a cause of death. This is another example of how they continue to miss the main point.

• The rate of firearm death of under 14-years-old is nearly 12 times higher in the U.S. than
in 25 other industrialized countries combined.

They do not mention which countries these are. Are the combined populations of these other countries roughly equal to that of the U.S.? Actually, they are probably greater, given that you can pick the 25 most populous countries on the planet, exluding the U.S., and they will have much more strict firearms laws. To correctly frame this argument, they need to provide the combined homicide, suicide, and violent crime numbers of these other countries.

• In 2004, for every child and teenager killed by a gun, nearly five were estimated to be
non-fatally wounded.

This is a statistic but makes no argument on its own. Would it be better if all six had been killed by a gun? Would it be better if none had been killed by a gun? I am guessing the latter would be a "yes" but then the statistic would still be just that: a raw stat with no frame of reference and no argument using it for support.

• From 1999 to 2004, firearms were responsible for 18% of injury deaths for Caucasian
teens ages 13-19 in the United States, 51% of deaths for African-American teens, 31% of
Hispanic teens, 18% of Native American/Alaska Native teens, and 19% of Asian/Pacific
Islander teens.

What is the ultimate goal of providing a statistic like this: Banning ownership of firearms in predominantly African-American communities until the 51% is down to 18%? I realize this is done quite often and find it irresposible at best. Had the numbers been the opposite, then the using this statistic might have merit. As it is, black and hispanic communites already have some of strictest gun laws in the country so should not these numbers be reversed?

The statistic is flawed in its wording as well. Not firearms but firearms misuse is the cause and those misusing them are responsible.

• In a study of inner-city 7-year-olds and their exposure to violence, 75% of them reported
hearing gun shots.

There are many things that are and could be wrong with this statistic. It begs the question, "Does every 7-year-old studied know what a gun shot sounds like and can tell the difference between a car misfiring, a television, or any other loud 'crack'?"

What were the questions asked to discern this? Poll results that do not provide the questions or other salient information about those questioned have little, if any, value.

• "The firearm injury epidemic, due largely to handgun injuries, is 10 times larger than the
polio epidemic of the first half of this century."

An "epidemic" relates to either a bacterial or viral, i.e. an infectious, disease. I am sure that those providing the statistics would like to think of firearm injuries as something that can be treated as such, that comparison can jade the views of those seeing the statistics. The result of which is the reader thinks less of the statistics overall. If someone is already in concurrence with the provider of the statistic, there is no problem. Someone who is reviewing the facts and may be swayed may just as well discount the whole study.

With regard to the numbers, no census data is provided. How many children were there in the last half of "this century?" It appears that whoever put the data together thought that we were still in the twentieth century. (The statistics were compiled from 2004 data.)

Firearm injuries may be more prevalent now than then numbers should be provided for reference. The references given in the statistics have the same fallacies, i.e. numbers are provided but sources and context is lacking.


The belief of restricting firearms to prevent violence is tantamount to treating the symptoms of an injury without trying to cure it. While it may make the injured feel better, it does not do much more than that.

Of course, the biggest issue that is missed is the overall amount of violence. The Brady Campaign is only concerned with "gun violence." They disregard the greater issue reducing crime / violence against the innocent. In fact, I say they do it to the detriment of the other.