January 2007 – Page 8 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Rendell Sworn-In for Another Four

Ed Rendell was sworn in today for four more years in the governor’s mansion.Â Rendell, as Mayor of Philadelphia, was one of the original group of mayors that came up with the novel idea of suing gun manufacturers under the theory that their product was a public nuisance.Â As governor, he’s given some lip service to the one-gun-per-month bills that the city politicians keep wanting to pass, but has largely kept quiet on his opinions on gun control.Â Aside from his position on that issue, he’s outlined some things I can get behind:

He broke new ground with his promise to overhaul the state’s open-records law, which many right-to-know advocates regard as archaic because it limits public access to specific categories of records rather than opening all records to public scrutiny except for specific exceptions.

I’m generally in favor of public records being as public as possible, with some notable exceptions.Â We will need to make sure that if this happens certain types of records (you know the ones) don’t get made public.Â I’m also enthusiastic about this:

His proposal to choose state appellate judges through a merit-selection process — a cause that critics of the current elective system have promoted for more than a decade — also came without warning.

I’ve never thought it a good idea to elect appelate judges.Â Judges should be separated from politics as much as possible.Â I’ll support this one.Â Even though I doubt this “merit-selection” process will be apolitical.Â There’s also a propsal in his inaugural address to put redistrcting to referendum.Â I have no idea how you’d make something like that work.Â I think there are better ways to deal with that issue, and don’t believe democracy is really going to work there.Â Hey Ed, some tax relief would be nice too!

Nutty Nutter Can Frisk This

We’re going to have fun with a name like Nutter. Especially when you start talking about crapping all over everyone’s civil liberties. For now on, Michael Nutter will be called one of the following “Nutty Nutter”, “Nutcase”, or in the case of referring to him as a possible winner “Mayor Nut”.
Of Arms and the Law links to a Philadelphia Inquirer article that previews some of Nutcase’s crime plans, which look suspiciously like every other mayoral candidates, except his would be done under the auspices of a “Crime Emergency”, which would give Mayor Nut extra special powers:

If such a declaration was made, the city would be empowered to limit or prohibit sidewalk or other outdoor gatherings; halt or limit cars and trucks within targeted neighborhoods; establish a curfew; and prohibit anyone from publicly selling, carrying or possessing any weapons.

To hell with the law if you want to be Philadelphia mayor! First time I get harassed by Mayor Nuts’ goons for lawfully posessing a firearm, I can promise them a giant lawsuit. If this gets beyond a lot of hot air, I think it’s time for us in Pennsylvania to make it a criminal offense for city and local government officials to interfere with the civil rights of Pennsylvanians. These clowns that want to be mayor might think twice if they were looking at fines and jail time for carrying stuff like this out.

I’m seirous about Dwight Evans looking like the best candidate so far, and that’s a sad statement on the state of the mayoral race in Philadelphia.

Hey Fuddies, Listen Up!

Dear Hunters,

I know some of you seem to think it’s OK to leave us evil black rifle types to the wolves, because, after all, they are never going to come after your grand daddie’s shotgun. Well, you need to wake up and pay attention to what’s happening in California:

In CRPAâ€™s opinion, the Departments current regulatory proposal to further define what constitutes the â€œcapacity to acceptâ€ a detachable magazine is nothing more than a covert attempt to ban as â€œassault weaponsâ€ most centerfire semiautomatic receivers and rifles in California. Accordingly, CRPA is in strong opposition to the proposed new regulations.

Who would have guessed? The anti-gun groups and politicians aren’t interested in just stopping at “assault weapons”. They’ll push laws and play with definitions until they get what they want; that’s right, your deer rifle. Because it’s not about reasonable gun laws. They’ve never wanted that. They hate guns and won’t stop until you can’t have one. So next time we tell you to fight with us, we really hope you listen. It might already be too late for you in California.

Sincerely,

Evil Black Rifle Lovers

Mexico Wants Stricter US Gun Laws

Mexico is agitating for more strict gun laws according to Jeff Soyer. The funny thing is, the Mexican Constitution is modeled after the US constitution, complete with their own right to bear arms provision:

Article 10 – The inhabitants of the United Mexican States have the right to possess arms, in their residences, for their security and legitimate defense with the exception of those prohibited by federal law, and those reserved for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and National Guard. Federal law will determine the cases, conditions, requisites, and places in which the bearing of arms by inhabitants will be authorized.

Of course, Mexican federal law pretty much prohibits everything. But surely this has to mean something, and doesn’t grant the Mexican federal government blanket powers to ban all firearms? Maybe Mexico should start respecting their own laws first, before they start asking other people to change theirs.

The NRA Strikes Back at Street

I’m pleased to see this up over at NRA News:

Philadelphia Mayor John Street talks tough when he pushes anti-gun laws, but when it comes to enforcing laws, he doesn’t put his money where his mouth is.

Philadelphia just set another record for the number of murders in 2006. Last year in the City of Brotherly Love, there were 406 murders, the most in almost a decade.

Yet instead of calling for increased enforcement and prosecution, Mayor Street is pushing a budget that’ll take a dozen prosecutors off the job!

Back in September, Mayor Street was more than happy to join New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg in demanding still more new gun bans for the state of Pennsylvania.

I will not go so far as to compare John Street to Wilson Goode, who is without a doubt the worst mayor that the City of Philadelphia has ever had, but the City has certainly not gotten better under Street’s watch. Cutting law enforcement and prosecution, appointing an incompetent Chief of Police, while at the same time as blaming law abiding LTC holders for the cities crime is just reprehensible. Does John Street really believe the gangs shooting it out over drug turf in North Philadelphia are bothering to apply for licenses to carry their guns with the Philadelphia Police? Does anyone really believe that?Â Why does the Philadelphia press keep acting simply as mouthpieces for this nonsense rather than ask the hard questions?

Look What the Brown Truck of Happiness Has Brought!

Let me just say, it’s pretty cool having the UPS man bring a rifle right to your door, after you ordered it off the modern Internets. Today’s delivery was a Mosin-Nagant M91/30, which is a rifle you would have been well familiar with if you were a Soviet soldier in the Great Patriot War. Of course, you wouldn’t have been familiar with it for long, because your life expectancy as a soldier in the Red Army was probably measured in hours. What makes the Mosin-Nagant a great rifle isn’t that it’s a particularly great rifle, it’s that you can go look in your sofa to come up with the money to pay for one. It’ll also happily fire ammunition that’s been buried in a farmer’s field in the Ukraine since the First World War, which he’d probably be happy to trade for a liter of vodka.

Shipped from Century Arms, in from the Great State of Vermont, nicely packed in the box:

Wrapped in the local paper, the Milton Independent.

I love what makes the front page there. A quiet day on Lake Arrowhead!Â I’m really glad they are getting that mold problem under control though. Must be from all the moldy Massholes moving in ;)

The whole deal showing right here. This rifle is arsenal refinished, so the furniture looks pretty good. A few dings and scrapes here and there, but nothing awful.

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The receiver markings show this comes from the Izhevsk arsenal in Russia, manufactured in 1944.Â You can also see the hammer and sickle, certifying the rifle as 100% commie.Â It’s a shame though, the Russian Imperial markings were much nicer and more ornate than the Soviet era ones.

Like every other rifle I’ve ever gotten from Eastern Europe, it’s packed in a good bit of cosmoline, which will have to be cleaned off before it gets shot. I have an idea of how this must go:

“Igor, you know the Americans, I have heard they love cosmoline.”
“It is true, they can never have enough! Pass me some more will you, Sascha.”

So once the cosmoline comes off, I will have to give a try.Â I’ll post a range report when I get around to it.Â Time to enter this one into the bound book and put it away for now.Â Also on my list for C&R aquisition: Soviet Military Makarov, Nagant Revolver (the pistol that put the ‘Russian’ in Russian Roulette), an M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, a decent Mauser, and anything else interesting I run across.Â I’m still going to be mostly an EBR shooter, but I figured I’d round out my collection with some historical pieces.Â Might as well as long as I can get them delivered to my door.Â I think they need to make the C&R license apply to everything though.Â My checkbook, however, probably will disagree.

WordPress Formatting Issues

I noticed that WordPress tends to scrozzle the formating sometimes.Â I’m liking WordPress overall, but I think the editor leaves a lot to be desired.Â I used to do LiveJournal in plain old fashioned HTML.Â I think I’m going to have to do the same on WordPress.

What Would A President Do?

Bitter got me thinking about an interesting subject when she said,

“I mean as much as i dislike Bush, if he were in a bar and some sketchy guy made a play for Laura, I could see him taking a swing. Romney, i couldn’t see it. Aside from the fact that he wouldn’t be in a bar.”

So I thought a bit and suggested,

“I can see Giuliani pulling out a billy club and beating him over the back of the head old school bronx style, or McCain strangling the guy to death like he were a Vietnamese prison guard that he caught in a moment of inattentiveness.”

Bitter retorted, “Presidents should be real men. I want one who wouldn’t be afraid to pick up a rifle and go shoot Osama himself, if given the opportunity.”

Interesting idea. So if our past presidents were going to kill Osama himself, how would he do it? I have some ideas, though a few presidents are skipped.

Teddy Roosevelt would have shot him and then had him stuffed for a trophy.

Woodrow Wilson would have gotten Osama to blow his brains out with a shotgun, by incessantly repeating his Fourteen Points.

William Howard Taft would kill Osama by being rolled out of a plane, in a variation of the Bouncing Bomb.

Warren G. Harding would have shot Osama, but would have demanded the 25 million bounty up front, then another 10 in kickbacks later as part of an oil deal.

FDR wouldn’t have killed Osama, because FDR couldn’t kill Osama. It’s hard to navigate a cave in a wheelchair.

Truman would have shot Osama himself, after firing MacArthur for wanting to drop an atomic bomb on him. He’d take the 25 million dollar bounty, and open the whorehouse of his dreams, where he would be the piano player.

Eisenhower would build a highway system in Afghanistan, so he could drive all around the country and try to run over Osama.

Jack Kennedy would hire the CIA to try to assassinate Osama, who would fail, but he’d be happy as along as he got a crack at one of Osama’s cousins.

Johnson would shoot Osama Texas style, by mistaking him for a pheasant.

Nixon would get G. Gordon Liddy to break into Osama’s cave, and strangle him with piano wire.

Gerald Ford stumbled off a cliff before he could get the shot off.

Jimmy Carter couldn’t find Osama, so he blamed the jews.

Ronald Reagan found him, got him in his sights, but forgot to pull the trigger.

George H. W. Bush decided to attack Osama by air, but he got shot down by a Japanese Zero somewhere over the pacific before he got over target. Poor George.

Clinton handed Osama and exploding cigar, then claimed “Mmm…. tastes good”.

That’s my attempt at humor for the night. Anyone else have any more they can add?

Federal Gun Rights Bill Even a Federalist Could Love?

Of Arms and the Law gives us the text of a new law that has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland.Â This looks like a bill even federalists might be able to get behind, since it appears to be essentially restoring second amendment rights through the 14th amendment.Â It doesn’t explicity cite the source of Congressional power, but I seem to recall that Congress does not specifically have to state the enumerated power under which it passes legislation, it just has to fit within the scope of it’s powers.Â So if my non-lawyer eyes are reading this right, it would let someone denied the right to have a firearm in Washington D.C., Chicago, or New York to obtain a firearm for self-protection, state or local law to the contrary.

That means this bill will absolutely infuriate Mayor Bloomberg, and for that reason alone, I think it would be worth passing.Â Sadly, as Dave mentioned, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening, which is a sad statement on what’s become of our Congress.

One Week

So on the first week of the blog I’ve managed 858 visits to the site, from 787 hosts, totalling 1618 hits. I’m not complaining for a first week. Many thanks to those who have linked to me, particularly Bitter and Unc, who’s kind links are responsible for a good portion of my traffic. Thanks also to the folks who I can see have me bookmarked. You guys are about half my traffic! I hope I can keep coming up with reasons for you to come back to visit.

Also, I’m always looking for topics and things to blog about, particularly if they have a Pennsylvania slant to them, so if you have ideas, feel free to send them to sebastian at snowflakes in hell . com.