This is a very interesting twist to the whole Wright fiasco. It would seem that it was a backer of Hillary Clinton that arranged the media conference with Wright. I have to hand it to them, nobody is as good at playing dirty as the Clintons. Pretty clearly they knew if they could get the good Reverend in front of the cameras, he would have plenty of rope with which to hang himself, and by association Barack Obama.
Month: April 2008
GOP Ads in North Carolina
Looks like the GOP in North Carolina ran an ad attacking Barack Obama, and by association the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for North Carolina, based on his association with Reverend Wright. I’m not going to agree with some in the media that the ad was in poor taste. I think the Wright issue is legitimate, as well as other folks Obama has close associations with. I don’t agree that this has anything to do with race, and I don’t get why other people want to wave that flag.
But nor am I going to join Rush Limbaugh in condemning McCain for distancing himself from the ad. From the McCain campaign’s point of view, it makes no sense to attack Barack Obama right now. If McCain or the GOP attacks him, you’re lending credibility to the notion of him being the nominee, and we don’t want that to start becoming a settled issue. With Hillary wailing away on Obama, and Obama outspending her six times over to not only lose, but to lose big, let the infighting continue. McCain and the GOP stand to gain nothing by attacking Barack Obama now, especially not on Rev. Wright. Let Hillary get dirty with him.
Let’s also not forget that the Republican have a lot of problems with the race issue, in terms of having certain people in the party who enjoy opening their mouths and inserting their feet. Not that the Democrats deserve a pass on this, by any means, but it matters little whether the the Wright ad was racist or not. There’s a public perception of the GOP as not being as good on racial issues as Democrats, and the media is only happy to foster that. The media meme was that the ad was racist, so McCain had everything to gain and nothing to lose by distancing himself from it. It allowed McCain too take the high road, while leaving Hillary to continue weakening Obama, and herself in the process. Either way this turns out, McCain gains. I would have imagined that people who follow politics as closely as Rush Limbaugh would realize that, but I have to wonder if they are too clouded by a seething hatred of McCain by this point to realize it.
Nagant 1895 Double Action Problems
Last night I decided to completely disassemble my Nagant 1895 to troubleshoot a problem with the double action trigger. When I would squeeze the trigger, the cylinder would rotate, but the hammer wouldn’t cock. Worked fine in single action mode. 
Upon taking it apart, I discovered that at some point, someone had apparently whacked the trigger with a punch in order to push some metal up so the double action fly on the hammer would catch more properly. I believe this was done to make up for a weak double action fly spring, which was allowing the fly to push in too readily, rather than catching on the trigger.  I took out the fly screw, and stretched out the fly spring, and bingo, it started working again. I may have to order a new fly spring if it happens again. There is actually a place you can buy Nagant parts (and from whom I shamlessly ‘borrowed’ the above image). I decided to write this up, because I couldn’t find much information on Nagant troubleshooting, I’m guessing because most people faced with a broken 1895 Nagant revolver just ceremoniously bury it in the back yard, then scrounge the sofa for the money to buy another one. But to me, the death of any gun is a tragedy, so I will commit myself to making sure this one stays in working order.
On Standards of Interpretation
Continuing a thread that started with my post about police rifles, I wanted to note that what I’m speaking of is not what interpretation of the second amendment is most correct historically, but which interpretations protect the widest array of firearms that the federal judiciary would adopt.
Note that there is no way the federal judiciary is going to accept a standard that laws regulating any kind of arm is by default unconstitutional. There will be lines drawn with certain classes of arms being protected, and certain classes not being protected. We have it on pretty good authority, both from Alan Gura, and various other folks with legal knowledge in the issue, that it is extremely unlikely that the federal judiciary will even rule that automatic firearms are protected arms under the second amendment.
So I think it behooves us to think of a standard that the federal judiciary will accept that nontheless, protects an awful lot of firearms. My “common police use” standard wasn’t meant to be an all inclusive rule, just one way to think about the problem. For instance, Bryan Miller’s crown jewel, the New Jersey Smart Gun ban would fail the common police use test, since police are exempted from it. The beauty of the test is that it forces politicians to seriously consider actions like what Chicago may be doing. If it can be shown that M4s are in common use in police departments, the constitutional case for restricting them starts getting weak. Certainly magazine size limits and bans on so called “assault weapons” would not pass this test already.
That’s not to say I think the “common police use” test should be the only one. I would propose a three fold test to determine whether the arm is protected under the second amendment:
- Is the arm usable for personal self-defense, or
- It has a function in the preservation of or practicing skill at arms, and
- It is of a type or functional variant of a firearm in common police or civilian use.
Type or functional variant makes this pretty broad, so many types of firearms fall into this. This test also doesn’t shut the door forever on machine guns, but nor does it directly address whether they are protected. It’s also a bit stronger than the “common civilian use” test that the court alluded to, since pretty obviously that would close the door on machine guns.
But this is only meant to be a standard of interpretation for what is an arm under the second amendment. At some point we also have to address what constitutes an infringement.
The Gift That Keeps Giving
Reverend Wright is the gift that just keeps on giving:
The Chicago pastor refused to apologize for suggesting black Americans should sing “God Damn America” instead of “God Bless America” and for suggesting America brought 9/11 on itself because, as he put it, “we have never apologized as a country” for slavery.
“Britain has apologized to Africans but this country’s leaders have refused to apologize,” he said. Wright also said, “You can’t do terrorism on other people and not expect it to come back on you.”
Speaking as someone who has never enslaved another human being, nor knows anyone who has, I think I can fairly tell Reverend Wright to go to hell. One of the key concepts in American liberty is that we are not held to account for the sins of our fathers. And speaking of our forefathers, is this not enough of an apology for you Rev. Wright?
Gun Trivia
Countertop explains a little history behind the Sturm in Sturm and Ruger. Interesting.
Border Patrol To Use Paintballs?
Reports GunPundit. Throwing rocks is deadly force, depending on the size of the rock. I agree with Murdoc:
Murdoc’s weapon of choice to “fend off attackers” at the national border would not leave a “small welt.” But I still don’t think the “human rights activists” would like it.
The use of pepperballs probably makes more sense than paintballs either way.
Would you blame the car dealership …
… that sold a car to a drunk driver that killed a loved one in an alcohol related fatality? I wouldn’t. I don’t see why Eric Thompson doesn’t deserve the same consideration.
UPDATE: Also note that the VPC study Bryan links to reports gun deaths, not gun homicides as Bryan claims. There’s a difference between the two. Gun deaths include suicides. I do believe that lower levels of gun ownership tends to reduce the incidents of gun homicides, much like I believe that the lack of tall buildings in Boise probably translates into it having a lower per-capita suicide rate by jumping than, say, New York City or San Francisco.
The Pennsylvania Strategy
The Weekly Standard thinks Hillary may have provided John McCain the key to defeating Obama:
In a new Brookings study of Pennsylvania’s political demographics, William Frey and Ruy Teixeira identify this region, centered on Allentown, as key to the state’s political future. If Pennsylvania’s Northeast keeps trending Democratic, the state will become solidly blue. But if a Republican candidate can hold the line or make some modest gains with the region’s white working class voters, the picture looks very different. And as it turns out, the GOP may have a candidate who can do just that in John McCain. As Hillary Clinton’s campaign slow-marches to its unhappy end, she is offering lessons not only for how McCain can defeat Obama–she is pointing towards a possible bright future for the Republican brand.
The Republicans have lost a lot in Pennsylvania, largely due to the Bush version of Republicanism alienating the traditionally Republican Philadelphia suburbs, and making those voters look elsewhere. That’s probably one reason I’m more sanguine about John McCain than most, is because I think the Republicans desperately need to make some gains in Pennsylvania, and McCain is probably the right kind of guy to appeal to voters in these key areas in the southeast. It’s not so much that I love the Republican Party, and want it to dominate, but I sit just across the river from a shining example of what one party rule does to a state. If Pennsylvania shifts solidly Democrat, if Ed Rendell is any indication of what is in long term store for us, we’re in a lot of trouble. Taxes will keep going up and up, people will keep leaving, and you can probably kiss Pennsylvania goodbye as a pro-gun state in a generation. If it takes McCain coattails to reverse that trend, so be it.
HatTip to Instapundit
UPDATE: Check out this graphic in the Inquirer that shows how Obama failed. It also shows that Ed Rendell had to carry near universal support in the Philadelphia area in order to win. Obama failed to not only carry overwhelming support in the southeast, he failed to beat Hillary.
E-Postal Match Ends Tonight
Crap! I will try to get to the range tonight to shoot this match, but it’s been a rough month for finding shooty time, aside from my regularly scheduled matches. For one, I only spent the first weekend of the month at home. Every other weekend I’ve been in Virginia.  This weekend we took some new shooters out to the NRA range in Fairfax. The good news is, for the month of May, I’ll pretty much be home, except for the Louisville weekend.