2007 – Page 123 – Shall Not Be Questioned

“They’ll Just Steal Them”

We always say that criminals will just steal guns if you pass useless crap like one-gun-a-month and other such useless restrictions.Â Â In Australia, a man proves that mantra with some very large guns, the kinds that are on tracks and move:

A FORMER Telstra worker allegedly stole a tank and used it to demolish six mobile phone towers as he led police on a wild two-hour rampage through western Sydney yesterday.

More than 20 police chased the tank but were powerless to stop it, retreating to a safe distance as the huge vehicle cut a path of destruction through six suburbs.

They could only watch as the driver, hanging out of the top at times, allegedly rammed the tank through fences and into six mobile phone towers, telecommunication relay sheds and an electrical substation.

No word yet on whether Rebecca Peters will be leading a new crusade for more stringent tank control laws in Australia.

Burma Shave is for the Birds

Clayton talks about the old days of Burma Shave, a brushless shaving cream. A pox on the Burma Shave house! While I might like Clayton’s Burma Shave-style marketing gun rights idea, I’m in the Kim Du Toit camp when it comes to shaving:

Right now, I shave with an old-fashioned bowl of old-fashioned shaving soap, an old-fashioned badger-bristle shaving brush, and one of those damn newfangled multi-blade razors. The razor is my sole concession to modernity, and while I appreciate its utility, itâ€™s not the same as shaving with an old-fashioned straight (“cut-throat”) razor, or even a single-blade â€œsafetyâ€ razor. Yeah, those 2 3 4 5-bladed thingies work wellâ€”maybe even better than the older razor types; but since when was I all about efficiency trumping tradition, anyway?

I pretty much do the same thing. Badger hair brush, shaving mug, and whatever fine English shaving cream I happen to have at the time. I do use a cartridge razor as well, because it’s just easier, and it works well. But you don’t know good shaving until you’re lathering up your face with a dead-badger-on-a-stick’s worth of Taylor of Old Bond Street’s rose scented shaving cream. Taylor’s is very easy on the face, provides a good shave, smells fabulous, and washes clean out of the razor. To me, this is the great feature. With modern shaving creams, if you don’t have power washer level pressure coming out of your sink, it’s a nightmare trying to get the blades clean.

So no Burma Shave for me. I’ll stick to my badger killing brush and fine smelling traditional shaving creams. If you’d like to order some yourself, my favorite place to get some is Vintage Blades, LLC. He set up a booth at the big Harrisburg Gun Show, which is how I found out about him.

Dealing with Hippies

Countertop seems to have a great way to deal with anti-gun hippies.

UPDATE: My evil twin points out:

I think the term â€œhippieâ€ is used a bit too liberally; true hippies, of which there really arenâ€™t any younger than 65 or so, were way to mellow and stoned for strident confrontation. This was more Million Mom you-must-have-a-small-wiener NIMBY type harrassment than hippie-ish. But I think we all know the type weâ€™re dealing with here, in any event.

I think he’s right about this.Â Â To use an example, I once dated, before I met Bitter, a “college know-it-all” hippy 9 years my junior.Â She didn’t like my habit of collecting and shooting arms.Â Though, she’s hardly the type that would go up to someone and comment on something like that, she did express to me her disapproval of my hobby.

Her father, who is more of the aging stoner hippy, I don’t think really thinks too much of it.Â I think he’s more of the mellow accepting type.Â Somewhere along the lines things changed from the 60s style hippy, to the ones that South Park made fun of.

But possibly not.Â I think what probably happened was that the 60s hippies mellowed out as they became adults, and were probably just as annoying as young adults as the current generation is today.

Some Advocacy Tips

When engaging in advocacy in public, particularly in places where you’re not around other gun people, but are around the general public, it’s importnat to remember SayUncle’s wisdom, and stay away from the crazy stuff.Â Â From the Brady Blog, I noticed some people linked to this.

Now, you and I both know JPFO puts out stuff like this all the time, but if I showed this to any of my coworkers, they’d say “That’s totally nuts.Â It’s disgusting.” Â Most people aren’t going to get that a Jewish gun rights organization put a lot of that stuff out there. Â It’s going to get spun as “The gun nuts are using the holocaust to push their political agenda.” by the other side.

So think before you post stuff. Â Don’t think how your buddies at the gun club would take it. Â Think about how ordinary non-gun people you work with would take it.Â Our goal is to educate, not to shock people, and the imagery on that web page are shocking.Â I do think it’s important to point out that gun control enables genocide, but be careful how you go about it.Â It’s one thing to link to JPFO directly, but we have to be very careful about using their stuff outside of their context.

Brady Blog Funtime

I think we reached a new level of achievement when we turned the Brady Blog into a place where gun owners were talking shop about their favorite firearms and calibers. I was also amused to find out the gun blogosphere has two token blog parasites, according to Kelli. But do you wonder why the Brady Campaign has to gain from running a blog?

To understand that, you have to have some idea of how non-profits work. I’ve heard enough stories from Bitter’s career in non-profit (can’t mention which ones) to have some idea of why they might be allowing this. The reason is, the Brady Campaign have probably realized they need to break into the new media, and no doubt they’ve been hearing a lot of their donors say this as well. The pro-gun message is out there already, even though the NRA’s new media efforts, so far, have been pretty pitifully awful. But because the gun rights movement has real grass roots, we’ve self-organized and gotten the message out there in the new media, despite the fact that the NRA barely acknowledges we exist, let alone reaches out to us. But the Brady’s have to be out there in the new media, and we’re doing everything we can to help them!

“What?” you might ask, “we have pwned the Brady Blog!”

This might be true, but when it comes time to talk to their donors, do you really think they are going to say:

“Well, we started a blog, but it quickly became a forum for gun rights people to bash us, and then talk amongst themselves.”

No. It’s going to get spun like this:

“The Brady Campaign is definitely reaching out to New Media. Paul’s blog entries are cross posted at the Huffington Post, which is one of the leading progressive new media sites. Our own blog is getting thousands hits a day, and we’re getting hundreds of comments on each post that Paul does. Our new media efforts are getting our message out there, and people are responding.”

They won’t mention that most of the traffic and commentary is being driven by the gun blogosphere. This doesn’t mean I think we should just ignore the Brady Blog, because we need to have fun, after all; it can’t be all serious, all the time. But just keep in mind, they aren’t stupid, and one thing they are masterful at is spin. If they are letting us dominate their blog, there is probably a reason.

Quote of the Day

Goes to Robb Allen:

You know what Kelli~ [~~Gonzo~~ anti-gun commentator on Brady Blog] and my gun have in common?

Theyâ€™re both tools.

For that, he deserves a place on the blogroll.

Uniform Firearms Act Oddities

I think some people are confused by Pennsylvania’s UFA in regards to how it defines firearms, and how you can carry an AR with an M4 upper loaded in a vehicle, but not a standard 16″ AR upper.Â Â That’s understandable, because it’s confusing for people who are familiar with Pennsylvania’s gun laws.Â Any time you look at PA law, you need to be sure which definition of firearm they are using.Â The standard definition of firearm under Pennsylvania law reads like this:

Any weapon which is designed to or may readily be converted to expel any projectile by the action of an explosive or the frame or receiver of any such weapon.

There are only a few places this is used, mostly for penalty enhancement to existing crimes, and prohibiting NFA firearms if the possessor has no complied with the NFA.

Most of Pennsylvania’s firearms laws are contained in the Uniform Firearms Act.Â In Pennsylvania, Firearms under the UFA are defined as:

Any pistol or revolver with a barrel length less than 15 inches, any shotgun with a barrel length less than 18 inches or any rifle with a barrel length less than 16 inches, or any pistol, revolver, rifle or shotgun with an overall length of less than 26 inches. The barrel length of a firearm shall be determined by measuring from the muzzle of the barrel to the face of the closed action, bolt or cylinder, whichever is applicable.

So basically, SBRs and SBSs, handguns, most AOWs, and machine pistols and most submachine guns, are considered firearms by the UFA, and are subject to it.Â That means the extra state police form to transfer one, no private transfers, and you need a license to have one in a vehicle (unless you fall under the exceptions, like going to the range, place of business, etc).Â If you have a license, you can carry a SBR, SBS, pistol, machine pistol, or submachine gun in a vehicle, loaded, because it’s a UFA firearm.

Long guns aren’t regulated for carry or transport by the state, except for not being allowed to have one loaded in a vehicle.Â That bit is mentioned in the UFA, and is meant to protect game codes that forbade the practice:

Â§ 6106.1. Carrying loaded weapons other than firearms.

(a) General rule.–Except as provided in Title 34 (relating to game), no person shall carry a loaded pistol, revolver, shotgun or rifle, other than a firearm as defined in section 6102 (relating to definitions), in any vehicle. The provisions of this section shall not apply to persons excepted from the requirement of a license to carry firearms under section 6106(b)(1), (2), (5) or (6) (relating to firearms not to be carried without a license) nor shall the provisions of this section be construed to permit persons to carry firearms in a vehicle where such conduct is prohibited by section 6106.(b) Penalty.–A person who violates the provisions of this section commits a summary offense.

So basically, you have a loaded rifle in your car, loaded meaning this:

A firearm is loaded if the firing chamber, the nondetachable magazine or, in the case of a revolver, any of the chambers of the cylinder contain ammunition capable of being fired. In the case of a firearm which utilizes a detachable magazine, the term shall mean a magazine suitable for use in said firearm which magazine contains such ammunition and has been inserted in the firearm or is in the same container or, where the container has multiple compartments, the same compartment thereof as the firearm.

I keep an assault weapon bag which has magazine pouches on the outside, and put loaded magazines in the pouches.Â I would argue that it’s a “separate compartment”, even though it would take 3 second to have a loaded rifle.Â If I’m wrong, I get a ticket, so who cares, plus, I only really do the truck gun thing when I’m traveling.

You can see that Pennsylvania law is rather odd here.Â Â If you had an M16, you can’t carry it loaded in a vehicle.Â If you have an M4, and a license to carry, load it up and stick it in the back seat, or stuff it in a trench coat, you’re good to go, and ready to rock and roll.Â SKS loaded in the back seat?Â No no.Â Loaded machine pistol under the seat?Â No problem! Â Weird huh?

People I Thought Were Dead Already

They say you learn something new every day. What I learned through Lady Bird Johnson’s recent death was that she was still alive. Every once in a while, some celebrity or political figure dies, and I’m left thinking “Wow, I figured they died years ago.” LBJ checked out a year before I was born. I guess when you think about it, JFK might still be alive today if Oswald had missed. But it seems so long ago.

It’s also amazing to me that we have World War I vets who are still alive.Â Talk about longevity. Â Then there are the people who I think really did die years ago, but they just haven’t realized it yet.

Action Park

Thanks to David Bernstein for reminding me of this place. Read the whole thing, it’s quite funny. Here’s an excerpt:

Super Speed Water Slides: These were two water slides, set slightly apart from the rest of the park, that took advantage of nearly vertical slopes to allow riders to attain higher speeds than usually possible. One started with riders going almost vertically downwards and was covered with screening for the first several feet.

As barriers on the side of the slides were very low, lifeguards reminded every user to remain flat on their back with their arms at the side as they descended since there was no way to ride it otherwise and stay on. The fall from both slides had the potential for very serious injury.

Those who made it to the bottom found their progress arrested by water, which made a large splash, and then a small pool. The speed at which riders met the end resulted in many getting wedgies and enemas from the experience.^[13] Employees kept fishnets for scooping out the occasional nugget of excrement or tampon.

This statement I think pretty much sums up what we’ve lost as a society byÂ treating children as fragile eggs who have to be protected from everything:

Action Park made adults of a generation of Tri-State Area kids who strolled through its blood-stained gates, by teaching us the truth about life: it is not safe, you will get hurt a lot, and you’ll ride all the way home burnt beyond belief.

Another patron notes:

Action Park was a true rite of passage for any New Jerseyan of my generation. When I get to talking about it with other Jerseyans, we share stories as if we are veterans who served in combat together. I suspect that many of us may have come closest to death on some of those rides up in Vernon Valley. I consider it a true shame that future generations will never know the terror of proving their grit at New Jersey’s most dangerous amusement park.

But not today.Â No.Â We can’t let kids do anything dangerous.

History of Gun Control

If you haven’t seen it already:

History of Gun Control, Part 1

History of Gun Control, Part 2

History of Gun Control, Part 3

Sandy was a great voice for the NRA when she was President. Â I’m happy that she’s still on the NRA Board of Directors, and still getting the message out there.