Month: August 2007

Life Free or Die!

Well, I think Ed Brown, the notorious tax protester, is going to choose the latter option.  It’s a very well written post.  These are the kinds of people I’d honestly prefer not have guns.   They make normal gun owners look like whack jobs.  Taxes are not a reason to threaten to murder people, and whether he ends up dead or in prison, I won’t shed a tear for him.

But I will say this, his situation is an interesting study in how power works.  If you defy your governments laws, eventually men with guns will come and exert the government’s power over you.   All power comes down to that.   To those people who believe that small arms can never be effective against an oppressive government, Ed Brown’s continuing resistance to government power shows that the notion is incorrect.  If it wasn’t for being armed, he’d be in federal custody already.

I believe Mr. Brown is gravely mistaken in his belief that the government has gotten so out of control that violence is an acceptable solution.   I’m sympathetic to the idea that the government has made too many encroachments into our liberties, and that our federal government exercises power beyond its constitutional limits, but the government has done no wrong so grave that taking up arms against it, and against its agents, it warranted.

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My Beer Fridge Doesn’t Do This!

This is very cool.   Unfortunately, it means you have to drink beer from a can, which is sacrilege.   Beer is properly drunk from a glass, unless you’re a heathen.   I suppose it would be possible to construct a robot that would throw you a bottle, and a fresh glass, but failing to catch it could get rather messy.

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Guns on Campus from Independent Alligator

Via The Madman Raves, we have opposing points of view.   Nothing we haven’t heard before, but I love the name “Independent Alligator” for a student newspaper.  This is a very difficult issue for us to win on, because it’s too easily painted with imagery of handing out guns to students at frat parties.  I don’t think we should call for “arming students” or “arming professors”.   That needs to be banished from our rhetoric, and it’s not what we’re trying to do anyway.

This is a political battle you fight outside the context of any tragedy or incident.  Neither the Appalachian Law School shooting, which was stopped by armed students, nor Virginia Tech, which was caused by one, seems to have created any significant movement for getting universities or state lawmakers to change their mind about firearms on campus.  That probably will never change.

It’s important to note that there is nothing in Virginia law that prevents a student with a valid CHL from carrying a firearm on any college campus in Virginia.  I’ve long said, responsible and well trained gun carriers need not worry themselves about policy issues.  The people who make those policies are worried about not getting blamed and/or sued.  If you’re serious about carrying a firearm for self-defense, and if you’re doing it, you better damned well be serious about it, you take the risk.  Our lives, and the lives of those around us, are worth more than a lawsuit or negative press.

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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Talks about the Guv

This editorial is meant to be a piece about Michael Nutter, but it’s pretty spot on in it’s criticism of our Governor from when he was Mayor of Philadelphia:

 Nutter has the kind of reform agenda that people wrongly associate with Rendell, who entered office with a mandate for change and a city teetering on bankruptcy. Rendell immediately went to battle with the city’s powerful unions, which “hadn’t had a bad day in 30 years,” he charged.

After winning significant concessions, though, Rendell aligned himself with Street, then the city council president. Rendell took care of downtown, which thrived, while Street ran the rest of the city as his private patronage kingdom.

With his eye on higher office and his reputation secure, Rendell chose not to pursue the reforms that other innovative mayors enacted in the 1990s. He opposed welfare reform and did little to fight crime outside of downtown. Despite its beautiful architecture and skyline, Philly’s a city where a 10-minute walk from City Hall leaves you in Third World poverty, danger, and despair.

Friend and sometimes co-blogger Brad has called Ed Rendell the luckiest politician alive, meaning that he made his political career largely by riding the same upswing experienced by every other city in the 90s.   But Rendell never fixed any of the cities fundamental problems, and now we’re paying the piper.

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ATF Changes It’s Mind

The ATF has never held a position it wasn’t willing to change.  Sadly, they have reneged on the deal they made with Ryan Horsley of Red’s Trading Post not to take their bogus claim of intimidation before the judge.

Ryan has some interesting peices for sale up on Gun Broker.   Go have a look!  There are some nice looking C&R pieces on there too.

I meant to get this up sooner, but I couldn’t get to my machine for half the day :)

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Sorry ’bout the Outage

I think I might need to get Verizon out here to troubleshoot some link problems with the copper portion of my FiOS connection that runs into the house.  It seems that I’m having difficulty keeping the network link to the fiber hub up.  This is the second time I’ve seen it cut out during the day with a dead link.   Both on hot days… hmm.

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Alcohol, Tobbaco, and… Not Firearms Yet

I mean taxes.  Congress and the Pennsylvania Legislature have been mulling over taxes on cigarettes and booze.  In principle I have no problem with excise taxes on booze and tobacco provided that those taxes are meant to raise revenue.  The government runs a real risk, if these taxes are raised too high, that they’ll create a black market.  It’s safe to guess these black markets will not to be run by the Boy Scouts.

Of course, increased taxes on alcohol would have a nice effect on the home brewing market.

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