Friday Links - 9 September

The Other McCain is up first with One Suspect Dead, His Brother Still at Large in Saskatchewan Stabbings. "The [snark] is strong with this one."

Obviously, Canada needs common-sense knife-control laws.

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ - A Covid Karen Demonstrates Why We Must Never Again Cede Power to the Government

This woman is a hysteric who demands the government impose her will on her unwilling fellow citizens.

In other words: She is the archetypical liberal Democrat.

Her notion of "freedom" is a government which squashes other people's freedom so that they are made to live by her rules.

Professor David Yamane at Gun Curious - Sociology of Guns Field Trip to Gun Range, 2022 (Light Over Heat #37)

Students are required to go on the field trip, but not to shoot. Prior to the COVID pandemic, all 16 students visited the range as a single group. From 2015 to 2019, about two-thirds of students opted to try shooting during the field trip. In 2020, due to COVID, I had the students visit the range in 4 groups of 4 students. I was interested to observe that in these smaller groups, every student opted to try shooting. Because there are always so many new shooters in the class, I think these smaller groups made it more comfortable for them to try.

Again from The Other McCain - Suspect In Memphis Woman’s Murder Began His Criminal Career at Age 11

There’s no “moral to the story” here. It’s just one of the very best people getting killed by one of the very worst. Not much to add.

The Post Millennial - WATCH: White House defends Biden and social media companies censoring Americans. (We don't need no First Amendment!)

In a more than 700 page Join Statement on Discovery Disputes, filed on August 31, it revealed that more than 32 federal agents had communicated with the Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta about content moderation, while YouTube disclosed that 11 agents had been in contact, and Twitter had been in contact with nine federal officials.

Adaptive Curmudgeon - Shining City On A Hill

I remember when presidents gave speeches that didn’t threaten Americans with violence. I remember presidents who didn’t list off which groups are slated for subjugation. I remember presidents that at least tried to be pleasant.

The Other McCain again - White House ‘Targeted Me by Name,’ Says Feminist Vaccine Skeptic Naomi Wolf

Wolf’s critics would say she has published false or, at least, unverified claims about COVID-19 vaccine risks, and my point is: It doesn’t matter.

People publish discredited nonsense every day — astrology, hello? — and have been doing so since the invention of writing. You can order books from Amazon about witchcraft and alien abductions and all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories (and if you order through my affiliate links, I’ll get a commission), but so what? If people are literate, and yet ignorant enough to believe blatant falsehoods, this points to a problem with our education system, which cannot be solved by banning the publication of things we don’t want them to read, because who will decide such questions?

Once more from Professor David Yamane - Show and Tell in Sociology of Guns Class

In the meantime, pictured below are 4 ammunition cartridges I brought with me to show the class. Three of them the students shot at the range: .22LR, 9mm, and .223 Remington. I highlighted how the diameter of the .22 and .223 bullets are almost the same, though their size and the amount of gunpowder used to propel them are dramatically different.

Although ballistics are well outside of my areas of expertise, students did have questions about calibers designed for hunting, the difference between rifle rounds and shotgun shells, and the legality of fragmenting bullets.

Flopping Aces - Potato Salad Politics

In 2002 a death threat from someone in Egypt meant getting the FBI involved. They told me to either stop writing or use a pen name, then blew me off. I tried using a pen name, but as time passed, and the War on Terror became a domestic political tool so too did the trolls and threats. One day, someone trolled my Facebook account, and made some intimidating comments about pictures of my family. That was enough, and I stopped writing. They successfully cancelled me.

This cancel culture is not new. People and groups have always turned to boycotts or a Scarlett Letter as a way of forcing their views to be accepted above others. I gave in. Most people do. We are lesser for it.