May 2007 – Page 6 – Shall Not Be Questioned

He’s NutRageous

John Lott reminds us that Michael Moore is completely nuts.Â Or is that NutRageous?Â Watch the Video.

I am often a critic of police tactics, particularly the use of military tactics, but Moore’s video here is insulting and demeaning, and trivializes the difficult job they have to do in discerningÂ whether or not deadly force is justified.Â Moore also misrepresents what the law is in this matter.

Everyone should check out, if you already haven’t already seen the video that was linked by Crime and Federalism last year.Â It involves a police shooting a man with a cell phone, much like the one Moore was using as a prop in his video.Â I would challenge anyone to say the police officers in this case were not justified in their actions.Â Also see the frame by frame analysis of the situation.

Moore is a buffoon, and the fact that he’s a hero of the far left is a big reason I can’t take them seriously. Â Given some real abuses out there in law enforcement tactics, one that have killed numerous innocent people, Moore chooses simply to mock officers and play the race card.Â The issue of race in law enforcement is a serious one, and by approaching it in this manner, Moore is simply making a fool of himself. Â It’s certainly not the first time though.

Lost Finale

Most unexpected twist ever.Â All along you’re wondering when they are flashing back to, and they are flashing forward, or is it sideways maybe?Â Â The odd thing is, Jack’s dad is still alive in this parallel Lost universe.Â I’m also wondering who died?Â No one showed up at his funeral.Â For some reason, I’m guessing it’s Ben.

Corzine Recovery Going Well

In From the Cold is wondering if Governor Corzine didn’t hit is head a little too hard in his car accident, based on his call to close to Warren Grove Range.Â Â On the contrary, based on what I know of the Governor, I would say he’s getting back to his normal self.

Legislature Pushing Back

Dave Hardy has some links to the goings on in Pennsylvania right now.

I have written my state representative about the recent antics of the Governor. I think this is actually kind of foolish on Rendell’s part. This is is surprising to me, because I’ve always thought, despite my disagreements with the Governor, he was a rather shrewed politician with a good political sense.

Despite his lame duck status, he’s the primary mouthpiece for the Democratic Party in the state. He’s just been handed a stunning political defeat with voters overwhelmingly rejecting the Act 1 tax shift, and now, with the Democratic Party holding onto a single seat majority in the General Assembly, he’s pushing hard for gun control.

A lot of those new Democrats are from districts where the voters will eat them alive if they perceive them as pushing gun control. Even if the reps themselves are pro-gun, which is the case for many of them, they are still unknown quantities to voters, and Rendell’s rhetoric here isn’t going to do anything but hurt them.

6 More Hours!

Only six more hours before the season finale of Lost!Â I really hope they don’t let us down.Â Â Based on the previews, it looks like The Others had the whole plan figured out.Â Â Did Juliet betray them?Â Will John Locke make it?Â Â I think Locke has to live, because if you look at the series, Locke I think is really the central character that the show is mostly about.Â To me, the main characters are Locke, the Island, and Ben.

It’s sure to be an exciting two hours of a television.

Stockpiling Ammunition

Dave Hardy tell us that Virginia Governor Tom Kaine is troubled that anyone can just stockpile ammunition, because the Virginia Tech nut job had 377 rounds. Â The last time I did an inventory, I had approximately 10,000 rounds of ammunition in my basement, in various calibers.Â I’m pretty sure that many of you out there can beat this handily. Â I think Tom Kaine, if this is really his sentiment, needs to get a clue.

Decent article by Lancaster Online, but…

Lancaster Online has a pretty good article on whether or not the Virginia Tech Killer could have gotten his guns if he had been a resident of Pennsylvania. The answer, they say, is no. They do get a few things wrong. For one, you can’t buy a gun on the internet without an FFL. And they are, probably not intentionally, misrepresenting a few statistics at the end.

I’m going to point this out, because this isn’t the first paper I’ve seen make this mistake. They are using the Pennsylvania State Police 2005 Firearms Report. This is accurate to use for gun sales, but it does not show the number of people licensed to carry a firearm in any specific county, it only shows the number of people run through PICS that year for a concealed carry license application. Lancaster Online mistakenly reports the number of people with concealed carry licenses in the county as 3989 people. The true number would be approximately five times this amount, since our licenses renew every five years.Â One year won’t give you a very good number, because a lot of people got them as soon as the law changed, so some years will be slower than others. To get a true number, you’d have to contact the County Sheriff, and most won’t tell you how many they issue.

Statewide, the last number I heard was 600,000, or thereabouts. According to the 2005 State Police Report, they processed 101,000 background checks through PICS for license applications. I’d say 600,000 is probably about right, but you’d really have to see the numbers over a five year period to know for sure.

Walker County Gunnies Respond

I posted a few days ago about this letter to the editor.Â It seems that gun owners have made themselves heard in response.Â Â I always like it when that happens.

Brady’s Pushing Microstamping Hard

The Brady Campaign made a press release today urging California to pass the microstamping bill:

Microstamping technology was most recently demonstrated last Friday at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. There, the co-inventor of the technology, Todd Lizotte, conducted a successful live fire demonstration of the technology at the building’s shooting range with media
and Hill staff in attendance. Participants were able to see the remarkable clarity and redundancy of the technology when Lizotte projected a microscopic view of a microstamped cartridge onto a projector screen. “All of the questions about microstamping have been answered,” said Joshua Horwitz, Executive Director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun
Violence. “It has passed test after test. Law enforcement leaders want this. Community groups want this. It’s time to get it done.”

Interesting.Â I thought guns were illegal in Washington D.C.Â I’m curious to know exactly how the firearm was brought into the district, and under what conditions this test was conducted.Â Of course, it’s quite possible and probably that they wouldn’t face prosecution here, because of the Parker decision (which they are against) in any case. Â Wouldn’t that be a fun bit of irony?

Of course, it isn’t true that this technology is a panacea:

To test the effects of repeated firing, Beddow fitted engraved firing pins into six Smith and Wesson .40-caliber handguns that were issued to California Highway Patrol cadets for use in weapons training. After firing about 2,500 rounds, the letter/number codes on the face of the firing pins were still legible with some signs of wear. But the bar codes and dot codes around the edge of the pins were badly worn.

They also found that results varied widely depending on the type of firearm used, and the type of ammunition.Â Of course, there’s also this:

Codes engraved on the face of the firing pin could easily be removed with household tools, Beddow found.

And you can bet, just like criminals remove serial numbers, they’ll remove these as well.Â And these will be much more easily and thoroughly removed than serial numbers.

I’m not sure this serves any other purpose than to frustrate manufacturers, and drive smaller custom shops and gun makers out of business.Â That would be fine by most of the groups who are supporting this nonsense.

Ed Rendell Harping on Gun Control

I guess Ed is a little pissed off after voters handed him a stunning defeat over the Act 1 tax shift proposal. He’s scolding the legislature over it’s refusal to pass gun control laws.

Gov. Ed Rendell today bashed the General Assembly for failing to pass gun control laws. “This Legislature, for too long, has been in control of the NRA,” Rendell said at a news conference with mayors from cities across the state and lawmakers pushing bills such as limiting handgun sales to one a month.

The Legislature for decades has resisted significantly tightening gun laws.

Asked for evidence of his statement that the Legislature has been under the “control” of the National Rifle Association, Rendell noted that penalties are tougher for receiving a stolen TV than a stolen gun.

Rendell is either ignorant of Pennsylvania law on this matter, or lying. Receiving stolen property is graded in Pennsylvania as a second degree felony if the property in question is a firearm. If the property is a car, it’s only a third degree felony. Receiving a television as stolen property is a first degree misdemeanor. I suspect Ed Rendell, as an attorney and former prosecutor, is well aware of this, and is deliberately misleading the public.

He said limiting handgun purchases to 12 a year would curb “straw purchases,” in which many weapons are purchased at once and resold to criminals.

Again, show me evidence that this constitutes a majority of trafficking, and show me proof that this law will have any real effect. South Carolina repealed its law because it didn’t. And Virginia weakened its one-gun-per month law. If 12 guns a year is enough, who’s to say that 1 a year isn’t enough? Sorry Ed, that’s not something politicians have any business deciding. Plus, if you only allow one a month, that means you’re keeping track of what I buy, right? Forgive me if I say f**k you.

Frankel said his amendment to make the penalty higher for receiving a stolen gun than a stolen TV failed last year in the House.

Funny, I just read the law, and the penalty is higher. If you want to see for yourself, look here to see how the law is graded. Here is the receiving stolen property law for Pennsylvania. I searched in vain for some evidence of Frankel’s defeated amendment, but couldn’t find it. It does appear in the past he’s tried to clarify the language by defining “firearm” in the state’s theft statute, probably to overcome the fact that a firearm can mean different things in different parts of Pennsylvania law, but still, this is house cleaning.

Politicians lie folks, and journalists don’t bother to check what they say or call them on their bullshit. It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s part of the reason the blogosphere exists.