Why We Don’t Need A “Bloody” Revolution
Posted by Noah | Filed under politics
My Facebook Friend James wrote this and I though t I’d share it because I feel much the same way.
I keep on hearing more and more about how we need a bloody, glorious, revolution. We do not. I have paid attention to all that is going on, and Obama and his friends are doing a great job of losing themselves senate elections in 2010 and the presidential election of 2012. Isolated acts of violence will just make conservatives/Libertarians look like terrorists now, and people are jumping on the small government bandwagon, all the independents are beginning to turn to the right, as they see what the Democrats are doing as wrong. Now think, if we had someone who wanted to play Timothy McVeigh at this time, how all that work would have gone to hell in a handbasket.
The idea of taking life, no matter your religious persuasion, is wrong at the core unless it is absolutely necessary. When the government starts detaining people due to their opinions and torturing/killing, that is time. But not when they are bickering over healthcare currently, and Cap and Trade is on the backburner. The idea of going and shooting up a government office or bombing some place makes no sense; the people who work in those places are just trying to make a living, even if they are part of the machine. My mom works for the public schools in my area. Yes, government employees have families, too. The real people behind all of this are the politicians, and the only recourse is to keep the heat on them with letters and calls to tell them they will be voted out of office if they vote for X-legislation.
Other things that I believe about this is that Americans are Americans. It is not solely your area that is the only place that matters. I went on the National Catholic Youth Conference last weekend in Kansas City, Missouri (and I saw quite a lot of Conservative/Libertarian Catholic youth which made me really happy for the future of my Church). I met a lot of people from all over the country. An 18 year old from New Jersey was rather similar to me, partially due to religion, and partially due to the fact that we are both Americans. I don’t care someone’s political beliefs, killing my fellow citizens is especially something I don’t want to think about, unless they are coming after me.
I guess what it all comes down to is how crazy people are for already considering attacking government employees/politicians. Thomas Jefferson’s words have been applied to liberally. There are not foreign armies or hired guns marching down our street, no matter what those conspiratorial ones might say. We still have it pretty good as far as things are concerned. And most in the US military are not content with what Obama is doing, and assuming orders were given to control the people, servicemen would just ignore those orders.
Another thing to consider from history is that Lexington and Concord were due to the towns’ ammunition stores being burned and that “Shot Heard Round The World” that came either from a nervous Brit or a nervous militiaman.
While I believe we need change now, it does not come with a dead neighbor because they happened to vote for Obama or work for a certain politician. The change we need will come through more and more Tea-Parties, protests, and letter-writing and calling campaigns. What we have been doing is working! All Keith Olberman and MSNBC can do is insult us. They don’t know how to match up with honest American taxpayers from ALL WALKS OF LIFE! Yes, I saw an Arabic couple at the Indianapolis Tea Party.
The time is now, just keep the peaceful, non-violent pressure up. But at the same time, be ready in case the government might want to commit acts of violence against us, and in that case only attack who is responsible. A little bit of preparation never hurt anyone!
By James William Maier, of Homecroft Indiana (that’s by Indianapolis)
Tags: firearms, liberty, peace, politics, revolution, USA
Cost of the Ruger 10/22 Rifle Over Time
Posted by Noah | Filed under firearms
Preface: The Ruger 10/22 rifle is one of the most popular non-military rifles made by a single manufacturer. It’s a quiet, inexpensive, low power .22 rimfire rifle used for shooting things like cans, bottles, squirrels and etc. Being a semi-automatic discharges one bullet with each pull of the trigger. The 10/22 is very often someone’s first rifle, especially in the US and Canada, many a 16th birthday has been “made” by a 10/22.
I was watching a video about the Ruger 10/22 rifle and the price was mentioned, and how it was priced now, as well as what people have paid for it. That got my wheel turning, and I thought I would do some calculations.
Using the current 10/22-RB model, which I understand is the closest to the original (although no expert) and working backwards from today with the official US inflation data (not the Cost of Living Index) we get some interesting numbers.
Working backwards
2009 $269
2004 $234.68
1994 $184.12
1984 $129.08
1974 $61.25
1964 $38.51
Working forward (using the original MSRP)
1964 $54.50
1974 $86.67
1984 $182.99
1994 $260.55
2004 $332.10
2009 $373.59
That’s a 39% more than you’d pay now! Or you could look at it as paying 28% less than you might expect.
That’s very interesting, however official inflation data is seldom realistic (in my opinion). That’s probably because it comes from governments with a vested interest in making it seem lower than it really is. So on to something more realistic.
In 1964 50% of American households had an income of $6,957 or greater (median*), a 10/22 was 0.78% of that.
In 2008 the median household income was $52,163, and currently a a 10/22-RB is $269 or 0.51%
Thus (by my calculations,) it’s now 35% more affordable than when it was new.
If you wanted to do a better comparison of what the actual economic experience would be like, comparing CLI adjusted percentage of disposable income in the target demographic would probably be better, but I just don’t have the data.
* I’m going to make another simple post explaining why I use median incomes when I do this sort of thing rather than mean incomes.
Tags: econom, economics, firearms, history, inflation, perspective, pricing, rifles
New Beretta USA Website
Posted by Noah | Filed under firearms, technology
Recently Beretta USA launched their new online shopping extravaganza (for Americans but I use it to look up specs). I have to say it’s a HUGE improvement over the old site, MUCH faster, however it’s still a typical ASP pile of shyte site. When you click links on the navigation to go to the sections you want in new tabs you instead end up with javascript:__doPostBack('ctl00$SideMenu$TreeView1','s2100000084\\3100001364\\3100001367') Which of course simply constructs a URL and sends you there. Someone needs to introduce gun manufacturers to proper website design
You can see the new site at https://www.shopberetta.com/
Tags: beretta, e-commerce, firearms, technology