The rally went swell. I will have coverage as I manage to get caught up, and organized. Things look very good for gun rights in Pennsylvania, and we met with many representatives. I would like to personally thank Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Assocation, Firearms Owners Against Crime, and Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League for putting this event together and getting people excited about lobbying to protect the second amendment.
Month: April 2008
HB 1845 Passes House
The bill HB1845, which contains a provision to eliminate the administrative ban on carrying firearms in state parks, as well as passes “Katrina” legislation, preventing authorities from confiscating firearms in a State of Emergency, has passed the house. In fact, it passed the house while myself, and several other Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association members watched from The House Gallery at the Capitol in Harrisburg.
Predictably, Philadelphia media is spinning this as a victory for gun control because of the provisions it has stiffening penalties for possessing a firearm with an altered or obliterated serial number. No doubt the anti-gun forces in that city are following the Brady Campaign model, where if you can’t win, you can claim to win, and it’s just as good.
The vote was unnanimous, 200 to nil. The only representative who got up to say anything negative about it was Kathy Manderino, who wanted to point out the problems she saw with the provision to issue emergency concealed carry licenses, and to remind everyone that the Coalition Against Domestic Violence is opposed to this bill. Why they are, I can’t imagine, since how is it not empowering to women to be able to successfully defend themselves against a man who means to rape, gravely injure, or murder them. One has to ponder what these groups think of the women they claim to represent, that they don’t believe them capable of making wise decisions in regards to their own personal security.  Nontheless, I guess Rep. Manderino’s objections weren’t that strong, because she didn’t vote against final passage.
Light Blogging
Blogging was more light this weekend than the usual light weekend blogging because of my IHMSA match, which could have gone better. It was cold, and the wind was up. These are the kinds of conditions which seperate the men from the boys, and I’m just getting to the point in this where my voice is starting to crackle.
I got a 13 in Field Pistol in Production category, with my S&W 629 with Iron Sights shooting .44 Special. Combined with my last score of 11, that qualifies me for an A rating. Didn’t score all that well in small bore. Wind was a killer there, and I don’t have enough experience to compensate for it. Field pistol still remains my best game.  Hopefully in better weather, I’ll be able to score a A or maybe AA rating in small bore before the season is over.
Tomorrow I will be traveling to Harrisburg to attend the pro second amendment rally there. I will be reporting back on the happenings as soon as I get home, but morning and afternoon blogging will probably be light.
Quote of the Day
“I have a dream. I refuse to accept the end of man. I believe he will endure. He will survive. Man is immortal, not because alone of God’s creatures he has a voice, but because he has a soul… a spirit capable of compassion… and sacrifice… and endurance. About America and Americans, this is particularly true. It is a fabulous country, where miracles not only happen, they happen all the time. As a nation, we have, perhaps uniquely, a special willness of the heart.
– Charlton Heston, “In the Arena” a 1995 Autobiography
Charlton Heston – RIP
Statement from Wayne LaPierre:
Today, my heart is heavy with the loss of Charlton Heston.
America has lost a great patriot. The Second Amendment has lost a faithful friend. So have I, and so have four million NRA members and eighty million gun owners. And so has every American who cares about the Bill of Rights, individual liberty, and Freedom.
My heart is heavy, but not without a sense of pride. Pride in a man who devoted his life to his profession with grace and dignity. Pride in an American who devoted himself to civil rights, to correcting injustices around him, and to standing up for what he knew was right. Pride in a friend who stood with me and stood with fellow NRA members to preserve our freedom for future generations. Pride in a patriot who believed with every fiber of his being that our Bill of Rights is the foundation of our freedom that makes Americans singular among the masses of nations.
And now, Charlton Heston has passed that duty to us – the next generation. I am as proud to continue his cause as I am to have known him as my friend.
But today, my thoughts cannot leave the Heston family. They have always had my utmost respect and admiration and, today, they have my deepest sympathy and most earnest prayers. And they will always have my friendship.
I don’t really have anything to add.
Quote of the Day
God, I love the internet. Nobody can get away with anything stupid for long.
Yeah, it is kind of nice isn’t it?
Bowling Pin Shooting
Mr. Completely has some advice for bowling pin shooters. I’ve never tried bowling pin shooting myself, but it sure sounds like a lot of fun.
From Across the Rubicon
SayUncle points out that Wyoming is telling the feds to go to hell in regards to a lot of their less-than-civil-rights-respecting laws. Montana did a similar action with federal gun laws. These are largely symbolic gestures, because despite all this, Montana and Wyoming are still committed to being a functioning part of the United States.
But what if they weren’t? What if the federal government crossed the Rubicon of gun control? We often like to think that the federal government will meet mass resistance should the “knock on the door” ever come, but they probably won’t. Lone individual action will not be how an onerous federal gun measure will be successfully resisted. No doubt some individuals will try, with the end result being those individuals end up dead, possibly along with their families. I don’t think the answer to the “Crossed Rubicon” problem lies in relying on that possibility. The knock won’t likely come from men in jack boots, disarming people to ship them off in cattle cars and toss them into ovens. It’ll come from a happy, smiling government that wants to take care of everybody, and surely you don’t need guns in such a happy utopia.
Most non-sociopathic human beings have powerful mental programming that prevents them from going against the tribe. It’s easy to say “I’ll shoot any son of a bitch that comes for my guns.” from the comfort of a lounge or living room. It’s quite another thing to actually do it; to put a fellow countryman in the cross hairs, one that’s likely to represent a government that looks more like Sweden than 1930s Germany, and actually pull the trigger. It is not something the vast majority of law abiding people are capable of doing. I have no doubt some will, but the numbers will be very small, too small to make any difference in the end. Such action will likely strengthen the resolve of those who want to bring us paradise.
Whether we realize it or not, Wyoming and Montana are showing us how it could be done, effectively done. They key to resisting an unconstitutional federal government is state action, but something more than mere symbolic action. What if, for instance, Montana declared that federal gun control was invalid and unconstitutional, and threatened to arrest any federal agent who entered Montana to enforce it? How far would the federal government be willing to press Montana? What are other Americans willing to sacrifice in order to impose gun control on states that don’t want it? In this hypothetical scenario, Montana would have to be deadly serious about enforcing their edicts. Attempts by the federal government to impose control over the situation would need to be met with quite real threats of secession, along with the attendant violence that could go along with such an audacious move. Montana would essentially be asking the nation a very serious question “Are you so intent on gun control that you’re willing to risk the cohesion and integrity of the United States, and to risk violence against the citizens of several of our states to enforce it?” Unless Americans change greatly, the answer to that is probably going to be no, and it would offer a peaceful way for the federal government to retreat back across the Rubicon.
This scenario offers three very important things — It offers people, who want to resist, the legitimacy of a functioning, lawful government to rally around, as an alternative to dying in a desperate, lone action. It offers a means of collective confrontation with the federal government that wouldn’t have to turn violent except as a final resort, and finally it offers an opportunity for the proponents of gun control to back down from the brink.
The question second amendment advocates need to be thinking about isn’t “Where’s the line in the sand where I start shooting.” but “Where’s my line in the sand where I start lobbying my state government to stand up to this crap?” We have to keep the spirit of defiance alive in our state cultures. Secession has a lot of negative connotations to many people, since the last time we did it, it was in defense of slavery, but its possibility a critical aspect in the balance of power between the federal and state governments. It is the ultimate trump card, one that must be played with utmost care, but it must be kept in play. That’s tough in an age where all the states suckle at the federal teat, but if we’re to remain under a federal government limited by the a constitution, more states have to start acting like Montana and Wyoming, and be willing to tell the federal government to go to hell, with all the terrible consequences that statement could have if they were to one day be serious about it.
Channeling Dr. King
As it is always with great men, there are many who want to imagine that they would have supported this or that, or surmise what they may have thought of our modern situation. The Brady Campaign are no exception on the anniversary of his assassination:
If Dr. King is looking down on us today, I can imagine him seeing 12,352 gun murders a year in the United States – nearly 34 every day – and telling us that “the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy leaves everyone blind.â€
Somebody’s got to “have some sense†in America.
Maybe he would, and maybe he wouldn’t. One thing we do know is that the 14th Amendment of the US constitution was passed partly to prevent southern states from passing and enforcing laws to disarm blacks, so that the Klan wouldn’t risk armed resistance when they terrorized them.
Let’s not also forget the Deacons for Defense:
In some cases, the Deacons had a relationship with other civil rights groups that advocated and practiced non-violence: the willingness of the Deacons to provide low-key armed guards facilitated the ability of groups such as the NAACP and CORE to stay, at least formally, within their own parameters of non-violence.[2] Nonetheless, their willingness to respond to violence with violence, led to tension between the Deacons and the nonviolent civil rights workers whom they sought to protect.
Roy Innis has said of the Deacons that they “forced the Klan to re-evaluate their actions and often change their undergarments”, according to Ken Blackwell.[3]
Let’s not forget Condi Rice’s support of the second amendment. She has been quoted:
During the bombings of the summer of 1963, her father and other neighborhood men guarded the streets at night to keep white vigilantes at bay. Rice said her staunch defense of gun rights comes from those days. She has argued that if the guns her father and neighbors carried had been registered, they could have been confiscated by the authorities, leaving the black community defenseless.
Finally, it’s known that Dr. King also owned firearms, and even applied (and was denied) a gun permit in the days before his movement determined that a non-violence posture was the best tactic for the civil rights movement.
The untold story of the civil rights movement is that it involved a lot of blacks and civil rights workers protecting themselves with firearms. The untold story of the gun control movement was that it originally started in order to disarm blacks.
The Brady Campaign does the civil rights movement injustice by wanting to imagine acceptance of their agenda in a speech where Dr. King was calling on followers not to seek violent retribution for wrongs done to them, not speaking against people defending themselves. Dr. King understood, correctly, that America could be persuaded to change by letting the segregationists be the provocateurs, the arsonists, the terrorists, and the assassins. It was the smart tactic. It was the correct tactic.
What Dr. King would think of gun control today, I don’t know, and neither does the Brady Campaign, but ignoring the racist and xenophobic history of gun control does society no service. I do not believe the Brady Campaign pushes gun control because of any racist agenda; that motivation to pass gun laws is something that fortunately is now only in our past, but it ought not be ignored in the ongoing debate over our nation’s relationship with firearms.
Philly Delaying Vote on Gun Bills
Reader ErnieD e-mails this article talking about the vote:
A package of gun control bills submitted by City Councilman Darrell Clarke will apparently not come up for a vote tomorrow during Council’s weekly session. Clarke last week said that the city Law Department was reviewing the proposed legislation, which was approved by Council’s Committee on Public Safety. The legislation, which could have come up for a final vote by Council tomorrow, is being amended today and then held.
The legislation would limit handgun purchases to one a month, require owners to report lost or stolen guns to police, allow police to confiscate guns from people considered a risk to themselves or others, require a license from police to bring a gun into the city, ban semiautomatic weapons with clips that hold more than 10 rounds and establish a registry for ammunition sales.
It should take them about 3 minutes to review this legislation. It’s illegal under state law and the state constitution. It’s not that complicated. I’m wondering if the city is worried about the lawsuits that are sure to come about if they cross this Rubicon.