Year: 2007

Days and Weeks?

I noticed this NRA press release that was put out Friday:

So, what can you do to counter this PR stunt? Of course, any type of pro-gun counter protest would be covered with the media’s typical anti-gun bias, if it was covered at all. But there is a way we can speak directly to the American people to set the record straight on gun bans, gun rationing, and other anti-gun proposals.

Through a massive and coordinated blitz of letters to the editor of our local newspapers in the days and weeks leading up to the August 28 demonstrations, we can speak directly to American citizens and our elected officials with the facts straight from the mouths of voting constituents.

This isn’t a bad idea, really, in the days and weeks leading up to the protests on August 24th, except for one thing. The date on the release says:

Friday, August 24, 2007

It’s a little late to get letters into the editor out for inclusion by next Tuesday. This release should have gone out weeks ago. Then there would have been time.

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The Drug War

This started out as a response to a comment by BadIdeaGuy, but I decided to turn it into a separate post. BadIdeaGuys pointed out:

There were more overdoses in Philly last year than gun homicides. Anyone seen an article on the drug problem facing Philly youth? My observation is that gun homicides occur largely in the “dealer class,” while the overdoses occur in the “user class”.

As much as I might recognize the drugs and violence are fairly intertwined, I think the drug war has hurt these communities more than the drugs themselves. I favor ending the drug war for this reason. Remove the black market incentive for drugs, and the violent black market in drugs will end.

You’ll still have the addict problem, but if you took all the money that goes into enforcing our drug laws (and it’s sizable), and put it into education and treatment, I think you’d find it money much better spent. It will help not having drug dealers shooting it out on the street corner, and it will also help not to send the message to young poor kids, with no hope and no opportunity, that the only way they can escape the poverty they live in is by joining a gang and selling drugs.

The drugs war, in my view, is a prime example of wealthy suburbanites supporting laws, under the illusion that it makes their kids safer from drugs, because they don’t live in the communities that are paying the price for maintaining that illusion. No doubt you’ll find support for keeping drugs illegal in virtually all communities, but the people I’ve encounterd who argue most passionately for it are middle class parents.

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Lawsuit Proceeding

A group of gun dealers and a few state lawmakers are filing suit to keep PICS from shutting down for four days in September.  Rendell’s office had this to say:

“Although we understand that there is no perfect time to upgrade the system the simple fact remains that the system must be upgraded,” Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said.

Rendell is looking at possibly delaying the upgrade.  As an IT professional, I can tell you there’s no reason for a multi-day outage.  Any upgrade should be able to be completed in a few overnight hours, at worst.  At best, things like this can be done with no downtime at all.   Banks manage to do it, online retailers manage to do it.  I’m not suggesting this is a deliberate attempt to screw gun owners, but the PA State Police might want to consider hiring more competent IT help.

Hat tip to Rightwingprof 

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Decline in Hunting

Go read Countertop’s great post on the decline of hunting in Virginia. He places the blame on the NRA and Christian Coalition:

You see, the NRA has so far refused to engage in the fight. I blame some of their internal staff, one of whom apparently used to run the lobby shop for the Christian Coalition. I have it on good word that he (and others inside the organization) are often more aligned with Pat Robertson on issues than with the NRA’s actual membership (which would go a long way towards explaining the organizations recent trend away from being Non Partisan and instead becoming an arm of the Republican Party).

…

So what gives NRA? Why aren’t you pressing to save Virginia hunting?? Cam, can we get you to ask this question? Michael? Dave?

Whether people want to admit it or not, with all the terms like “fudd” and the like thrown around, hunters are a critical component for the right to keep and bear arms, both in terms of a positive public image of the shooting sports, and in political advocacy.

While it’s true that a lot of hunters couldn’t be bothered to get involved, in my experience with grass roots politics in this issue, at least in Pennsylvania, when the chips are down it’s hunters who show up. When I attended the Committee of the Whole in Harrisburg last year, most of the other pro-gun types I ran into, who weren’t the activists from ACSL, were affiliated with the state’s hunting communities and sportsmens groups. Pro-gun folks numbered all of about 400, compared to the thousands the city bussed in. The more hunting loses, the more we all lose, so it’s something those of us who identify more as shooters need to be concerned about.

UPDATE: Countertop has more here and here.

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Idiots

This Daily News editorial is a prime example of the Philadelphia media being clueless dolts:

Unable to concentrate. Unable to focus on anything other than . . . their next gun buy.

Pennsylvania’s gun addicts are already going through withdrawal, as the planned four-day halt on gun sales to allow the state to update its computerized background checks grows closer.

The Pennsylvania Instant Check System is used by gun store owners to do state and federally required criminal background checks on potential customers. It will be closed for upgrading from 6 p.m. Sept. 2 to noon Sept. 6. That means that no guns can be sold.

Gun store owners are hot. The shutdown coincides with the beginning of the early dove and goose hunting season, a popular time – at least in some parts of the state -for gun sales.

Seriously, most hunters I can promise you have no idea PICS is going to be down during that period, and this is a busy time for outfitters and gun shops. What do you expect from businesspeople who are going to have their business shut down for several days during a critical sales period? Would you expect restaurant owners to not be angry if there was a ban on food sales for several days? What makes gun shop owners different, other than the Daily News editorial staff doesn’t like what they sell? That this even passes for serious journalism in Philadelphia shows how far the news media in our city has fallen. I’ve seen C-list bloggers write better stuff.

Hat tip to k-romulous.

UPDATE: Clayton links:

The hunting weapons, with a few exceptions, aren’t the cause of the violence in Philly. It’s largely handguns. Maybe they should ask why it is that the hunting parts of Pennsylvania–which are awash in guns and Republicans–don’t have anywhere near the problem with murder that Philly and cities with the misfortune to be too close to Philly have? Hint: it’s the culture, and the unwillingness to send murderers away, not the guns.

Absolutely!  And just in case any Philly folks start thinking, “Well, then we can just restrict handguns, because they cause the crime rate in Philly,” Pennsylvania issues more than 600,000 licenses to carry firearms. Philadelphia only represents 32,000 of those. So the rest of the state is awash in handguns as well as long guns, and yet, if you take Philadelphia out of the equation, Pennsylvania’s crime rate is on par with most of Western Europe. That’s why I keep saying Philadelphia doesn’t have a gun problem; guns are everywhere in this state. I refuse to accept a condition where people in the city are judged unfit to have the means to protect themselves from people who will get guns anyway, and I definitely refuse to accept the rest of the state, which doesn’t have a problem with misusing firearms, has to pay for the fact that a minority of the population in Philadelphia have the self-control of Britt Reid.

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Reasons to Carry in the ‘Burbs

We need protection from the children of people involved in professional sports. Yep, Britt Reid is in trouble again, this time for raising a stir at a Plymouth Township shopping mall that I frequent semi-regularly, then crashing into a bunch of shopping carts when confronted by police. Police are checking to see if he was under the influence at the time.

Reid is out on bail awaiting sentencing for his previous crime, which involved threatening another motorist with a gun. No doubt this will not help his case when he goes before the judge.

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