July 2007 – Page 3 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Knights Armament PDW

Joseph has links to some pictures of the Knights Armament PDW.Â Â Looks like Knights went with a more traditional approach, and basically has produced a variant of the standard assault rifle, only with a shorter barrel and firing an intermediate cartridge.Â One advantage to going this way is that the rifle can have iron sights.

I’m more of a fan of the compact PDW platform.Â I’d rather see a bullpup style config, with the trigger forward.Â I think a certain compactness should be key to the PDW concept.

Carolyn McCarthy Responds to Sugarmann

Via Of Arms And the Law, apparently Carolyn McCarthy has responded to Josh Sugarmann’s objections to HR2640 over at HuffPo. I wonder how many coctails the Congresswoman from New York needed to imbibe in order to dull the pain of writing these words:

The author must also consider the political realities of Washington. Despite the efforts of Mr. Sugarmann and many others, the National Rifle Association still wields tremendous influence in the halls of Congress and their blessing is required for any bill that enforces or creates gun laws.

Ouch! That had to hurt. The pain doesn’t end there, however:

In listing the three anti-gun violence organizations that have reservations about my bill, Mr. Sugarmann inadvertently addresses why the NRA has such power while the efforts of organizations working to prevent gun violence have been futile for close to a decade. The NRA is consolidated into a single cohesive unit, but the groups working for common sense gun laws are many and each possess their own agenda and points of view. Only when these groups join forces for common legislative goals will we be able to prevail not only in the halls of Congress, but in state legislatures and city halls across the country as well.

I guess she doesn’t know all the bickering that often goes on between GOA, JPFO, NRA and SAF. We are pretty united though otherwise, I’ll give her that. But we need to stay that way, which is why I get pissy when one group attacks the other to get advantage for their own group. It’s one thing to criticize, that’s fine, but I still think GOA became unhinged over HR2640. Carolyn McCarthy might get her wish though, given that the VPC is hemmoraging money at an astounding rate, it might not be too long before the gun control movement only has one group left standing.

She shouldn’t count on that translating to victory, however. The root reason we’re achieving victories over them politically isn’t that we’re united, it’s that there are a lot more of us than there are of them. If there’s a serious political movement to pass gun control, it’s completely unapparent to me here on the Internet.

Bryan Miller Time

Bryan Miller has an editorial going on NJ voices. I’d pick out a quote, but the whole thing really must be read, because it’s a continuous several pages of pants shitting hysterics. I decided to put int he comments:

Wow Bryan. That was the longest hysterical rant I’ve read in a while. I normally won’t touch Anheiser-Busch’s products, because, let’s face it: it’s not good beer. But your post has made me decide maybe I should get a six pack of Bud, if Anheiser-Busch they are so dedicated about protecting my constitutional rights from people like you.

You guys really need to come up with some original arguments. You’re still pushing crap about the 50 caliber rifle being able to destroy things like rail cars, when Sr Vice President of Trinity Trail Group said:

â€œThe assertions put forth about the threat to rail from fifty caliber rifles have no basis in reality. We exhaustively test our chemical rail car designs against all types of firearms, including fifty caliber. In almost all tests the bullet simply bounced off. The worst-case scenario we could demonstrate was a tiny leak equivalent to a hand-valve that wasnâ€™t completely closed. Leaks of that scale happen every day all across America.â€

The type of armor piercing incendiary ammunition that would light anything on fire is not available to the civilian market. Regular ammunition is not generally capable of lighting fires. The 50 BMG is not an explosive round. It’s not much different, ballistically, from other big game hunting rounds of similar caliber.

But the rifles that fire the BMG look scary, don’t they. And with many people in New Jersey having absolutely no familiarity with firearms, it sure does make them easy targets for the kind of disinformation your organization likes to push, doesn’t it?

Bryan Miller is also executive director of CeaseFire PA, because it wasn’t enough to destroy everyone’s second amendment rights in New Jersey. Now he has to do it in my state too. Fortunately, unlike New Jersey, we have a very clearly worded right to bear arms provision in our state constitution, and an active shooter community. He will not find his ideas so receptive on this side of the Delaware.

Go register and leave a comment.Â Be polite, and factual.Â We can’t let these folks misleading of the public go unanswered.

Top Ten Suggestions

A lot of other people have linked Rob’s great suggestions for Paul.Â I will too.Â Â It’s deserving of a high google rank.

Weekend Plans

I’ve arrived in Northern Virginia.Â Spent the better part of the day getting my car fixed.Â Had to take a day off work, unfortunately, once I realized it was going to be a while.Â Bitter is entertaining some folks from work this weekend, and David Hardy is in town, so we’re going to try to meet up with him.

But you know, I’m here pretty much every other weekend.Â Any of you Brady folks visiting today ever want to get together for a drink, since you guys are DC based, and all, just leave a comment.Â I’ll even meet you in The District, which is sadly much less safe than Fairfax County, but you don’t have to worry about sitting next to a bunch of strapped gun bloggers :)Â We’re the kind of people who obey gun control laws, you know.

Wow!

Go away from the computer for a few hours and suddenly we’re Brady Blog commenter central.Â All we’re missing is Kelli~!Â You’re all welcome here, of course, even Macca and Kelli.

Turning off Comments?

I guess they got tired of all us gun folks using their bandwidth.Â Â I figured something was going to give when I saw that some of you were talking about reloading (for those of you coming from the Brady Campaign, that means making your own cartridges) in their blog comments.

We wish the Brady’s the best of luck with their new and improved blog, that no one will read now.

Homeowners Assocations Governments?

There seems to be some disagreement over the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision that the first amendment doesn’t apply to homeowners associations. I have no love of homeowners associations. I went out of my way to avoid them when I was buying my home. Why so many homeowners buy homes that force them to enter into contracts to limit the use of their property, I will never understand.

But should they be treated as governments? With all the constitutional limitations imposed as a matter of course? I’m not too sure about that. I don’t see any reason why homeowners shouldn’t be able to enter into contracts with other homeowners over what they can and can’t do with their property. I don’t even have a problem with the owners entering into a contract that specifies that they will follow any rules that the homeowner association passes, even though at that point, the association would be indistinguishable from a government.

If people want to preserve their constitutional rights, and their right to property, there’s an easy solution: tell your potential neighbors who demand you enter into an association contract that they can go to hell, and find yourself a better neighborhood. Otherwise, you decided that having your dream house was more important than your freedom. That should be a choice you’re allowed to make. But I won’t have too much sympathy for folks who complain about it later.

Ed Comes out Swinging

Ed Rendell isn’t happy he’s getting screwed on putting toll booths every 30 miles along I-80.

Mr. Rendell said he “was shocked and disappointed” to learn of the congressional action, which is not yet final. He will urge Democrats in Congress to remove the ban on federal funds for I-80, but he said that may not happen until October.

Meanwhile, he added, “we can’t afford to wait” to find a way to generate nearly $1 billion a year in new funding for fixing roads and bridges and aiding deficit-ridden mass transit agencies, including the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

Ed can’t wait to get his hands on more of your money!Â But wait, he has a plan B:

Within 30 days he plans to ask private companies to offer bids on how much they would pay to run the Pennsylvania Turnpike for up to 99 years. He thinks such a lease could generate up to $1.7 billion a year for 10 years — considerably more than would be obtained under House Bill 1590.

Lawmakers have resisted the turnpike leasing plan in the past.Â I may actually not be opposed to it if someone can show me a good plan, and tell me how we’re going to get tolls, which generate 400 million a year in profit now, to generate 1.7 billion a year in profit, without massive toll increases.Â Â I am not as concerned as our legislators about foreigners in the toll booths. Â Foreigners work cheap! Â You don’t have to speak English well to calculate change!

Either way, this was a great move by the Pennsylvania GOP.Â Rendell burned a lot of political capital with that furlough of state workers, and it looks like they inked the deal to end the standoff, knowing full well they could block it at the federal level. Â Normally I’d call this kind of stuff sleazy, but furloughing state workers to get your way is pretty sleazy too.

Smoking Ban Difficulties

The Senate said no to the smoking ban the house passed a few weeks ago.Â Ed Rendell and the Democrats want it badly, the Republican controlled senate wants a weaker one.Â There is some hope for Keystone State smokers:

The House ban required a stricter, more limited list of exceptions than legislation recently approved by the Senate.

Senate legislation allowed smoking at a quarter of casino gambling floors, bars where food is less than one-fifth of the gross sales, addiction treatment centers, nursing homes and other adult-care centers.

The hope is they won’t be able to work out a deal.Â I’m not so optimistic. Â Daine Phillips, of the American Cancer Society says:

“I believe nonsmokers have their rights, too,” Beranek said. “It’s a stinky, filthy, expensive habit.”

Nonsmokers have a right to go somewhere else that caters to their preferences.Â They have a right to persuade property owners to ban smoking on their property.Â Â Ms. Phillips, I am not, nor have I ever been a smoker, but crapping on people’s freedoms and liberties of free association and property rights, is a filthy expensive habit, that you really ought to break yourself of.

My mother died of Breast Cancer when I was twenty. Â But I shall not give another dime to ACS as long as they keep pushing for these smoking bans.Â Freedom is more important.