Know When to Ask for Help

I went back to air pistol silhouette with Sebastian last night, the first time I touched the gun in a couple of weeks. But I wasn’t in the greatest mood for a number of reasons. About an hour before I left, I became insanely tired – like worried I’d fall asleep and not get Sebastian’s gun to him tired. When I got out there, the humidity was a bit of an issue. While it wasn’t icky sticky humidity, it was just enough that my clothes were sticking to me and making me itch a little.

In theory, you always want to do well. In reality, sometimes your give a damn is just busted. That was me last night. I started out the day wanting to go shoot, but in that last hour before we hit the range, things just kind of fell apart, and I wasn’t really there. Because of this attitude, I didn’t bother telling Sebastian about my trouble with the sight on the gun until I was on the last two banks of chickens – more than 3/4 of the way through the 60-shot match. It appeared as though there was crap in my sight, but I assumed it was something to do with my eye. My allergies have been driving me nuts the last few days, most notably with my eyes. So I assumed it was just one more physical reason I shouldn’t be out there. (They were joking with me that I was yawning too much since I was doing so every couple of minutes.)

Turns out that others agreed, my sights were in need of adjustment. So Sebastian came over and took care of it for me. (It’s still his gun, so I don’t change anything on it other than the CO2 and pellets.) Lesson learned. Even if I’m grumpy, if something seems off, I shouldn’t assume it’s just me. It might be my allergies, it might be my crappy eyesight, but there’s also a small chance that it might be the gun.

Endorsements Already?

I’m not seeing the sense in endorsing a candidate in either the Dem or GOP Senatorial primary at this point in the game.  But it seems FOAC is endorsing Bill Kortz, who’s a dark horse candidate running on the Dem ticket in the race that’s better known as the battle between Snarlen Arlen and Joe Sestak.  What’s also surprising is the language in the article would seem to indicate this is an overall endorsement, and not just a primary nod:

In its endorsement of Bill Kortz over all other declared candidates for U.S. Senate, Firearm Owners Against Crime, a non-partisan group of Pennsylvania citizens went on to declare, “We believe that a strong, independent and Constitutionally sound Government is essential for our society to flourish, especially in these trying times. It is our goal to assist in this process by helping to elect responsible leaders to elected office. F.O.A.C will be distributing our Voters Guide throughout Pennsylvania and your name is listed on this Guide as our endorsed candidate for the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race”.

I suspect what FOAC is thinking here is that any interest group is going to have more relative power to affect the vote in the primary rather than in the general election.  I don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake for a state level group to make an endorsement in a primary when the other candidates in the race are anti-gun.  But it’s still very early in the race — too early, I think, for an endorsement.  Let me explain my reasoning.

Any PAC or interest group that makes endorsements has to take care to protect and enhance the value, or at least the perceived value, of the endorsement.  The way you develop that value is to have a reputation for helping candidates win.  There’s a lot more too it than just “This guy is pro-gun, so I’m going to endorse him.”  If I were attempting to build a reputation for, say, a Snowflakes in Hell endorsement, I would stick to endorsing in close, better developed races, where I might be able to have some positive effects.  That both gives me a better chance of betting on the right horse, and a better idea of how much electoral power I have.  If you bet right more than wrong, even if you’re not the reason the candidate won, the perception will be there, and perceptions matter quite a bit in politics, arguably more than reality.

This is one reason NRA stays out of a lot or races, even when you have a pro-gun candidate running against an anti-gun incumbent.  Typical odds are 90% the incumbent is going to win.   Getting involved in a race which is going to beyond your organization’s power to influence — if you can’t drive enough votes and money to help the candidate win — you’re not doing your organization or the candidate any favor with the endorsement.  He’s still going to lose, and by association so will your organization.

Let me take a look at the numbers for a minute, just using this example here.  The last midterm primary, we had a total of 744,000 votes in a three way Democratic Senate race.  I believe this primary will probably pull roughly the same amount of votes.  I don’t know what FOAC’s break down between members who are registered Democrats and voters who are registered Republican, but I’ll be generous and assume it’s matches Pennsylvania’s overall voter breakdown, which means about 50% would be Democrats.  That’s about 30,000 of FOACs 60,000 members.  If you take the total number of likely Dem votes, and split it three ways, you come up with 248,000 votes needed to win.  If you assume you can drive an organizational discipline of 66%, and get 20,000 to actually follow your endorsement, you come out to about 8% of the total votes needed to win.  That is nothing to sneeze at, and a good reason for FOAC to be involved in primary politics if they have a lot of Dems in the organization.  But this is assuming the race is within the margin of FOAC’s influence.

The race currently isn’t close.  Latest polls show Snarlen at 47%, Sestak at 34%, and other at 3%.  Undecideds are at 16%.  Move all FOAC’s Dem members to Kortz, that brings him up to 7%.  A nice boost, but no cigar.  You can see what I’m saying when I argue the race hasn’t developed to the point where an endorsement is going to help a dark horse candidate all that much.  FOAC pretty clearly has some electoral muscle to exercise, but I’m not sure this primary is going to be a good demonstration.  If Kortz suddenly surged late in the game, and the numbers looked favorable for a FOAC endorsement to be able to push him over the top, go for it.  But until the odds look good, it’s not helping either the endorsor, or the endorsee to become involved.

A Useful Open Carry Activism Opportunity

Pittsburgh is claiming that it will revive its assault weapons ban, which was never taken off the books officially, for the G20 summit next month.  Whether this law is still on the books or not (Philadelphia’s still is too) is irrelevant.  The law was thrown out in court, and is therefore no law.  If the City of Pittsburgh tries to enforce it, they are acting under color of law.

The only way that we’re going to get cities to stop shit like this is to hurt them.  This would be a great opportunity for a group of activists, in consultation with an attorney, to get themselves arrested.  You can then proceed to file a civil rights lawsuit under Section 1983 against the people who demanded this non-law be enforced.  Civil rights lawsuits let you sue public officials, in their personal or official capacity, who act under color of law.

This would be how to do useful open carry activism.  Think someone will step up?

Please, No!

As a sometimes home brewer who primary has made ales from the British Isles, I have several authentic British pint glasses.  Authentic because they are emblazoned with a royal engraving on the glass, which certifies it one imperial pint (~20oz).  Truth be told, all these glasses are now made in Calais, France, but they are the royal standard.

Now it seems they may be in danger of becoming a thing of the past, due to the Home Office’s obsession of ridding the United Kingdom of anything that could possibly be used as a weapon.  That would be tragic, in my opinion.

Preparing for the Apocalypse

I don’t see how Larry Pratt can sell himself as an expert on dealing with the Apocalypse if he doesn’t plan to talk about how to confront the eventual zombie menace.  I mean, the elephant in the living room isn’t it?  At least how to deal with zombies would be tangentially related to gun rights.  What good is saving your 401k or IRA from planned confiscation if something has eaten your brain?

Importance of the 2010 Vote

Over on the site Bitter and I maintain for EVC purposes, we talk about why the 2010 elections are going to be vitally important, despite it being a midterm.  Why?  Because the people you elect at the state level are going to get to decide how your state gets redistricted after the 2010 census.  In Pennsylvania, we have a paper thin Democratic Majority in the House, and a Republican majority in the Senate.  After the 2000 census, Pennsylvania lost two seats, which lead to the elimination of two Democratic seats, and the creation of the sixth district, which is now occupied by Jim Gerlach.  We are expected to lose at least another seat in the 2010 census.  All else being equal, I’d prefer the Republicans to decide the new districts rather than the Democrats, which would easily cement Pennsylvania as a true-blue state.

Force Disparities

This case in Florida is a great example of the kind of situation you don’t want to find yourself in, and this is happening in a state with a “stand your ground” law.  Based on what I saw of the reaction to Marko’s post from the other day, I think a lot of folks out there are confused about what a force disparity is, and when you can claim it.

Grandma has a pretty good case claiming a force disparity if she shoots a young adult male who is attacking her.  But a healthy young male is going to have a difficult time claiming a force disparity against another healthy young male even if that other male is larger than you.   When you get into healthy males against healthy males, force disparity is whatever you can convince a jury it is.  This is the situation our Florida friend is going to end up in.  All the “stand your ground” law does is eliminate a duty to retreat before resorting to deadly force, and reduce self-defense to a “preponderance of evidence” standard from a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.   It does not change the fundamental calculus about when deadly force may be used.

Canadian Gun Control on the Internet

Apparently the gun registry fiasco was the first major Canadian scandal to play out on the Internet, and Canadian gunnies were more adept at using it to get their message out:

The Internet allowed average Canadians to express their outrage about the cost and complexity of the gun registry, she said.

But it also allowed a minority to hijack the issue, sometimes using mistruths, said Flumian.

“Particularly, the anti-fire arms registry lobby was very adept at getting their message out,” she said Monday. “It went viral.”

I see more evidence around these days of Canadian shooters online, so maybe this can be a good vehicle for making some progress.  Of course, the only Canadian gun blogger I know of is this guy, and he lives in Maryland.