No, not Paul Helmke’s blog. No one pays attention to that one except us. Rachel Lucas has some stunning examples of douchebaggery from some of the bloggers there. I think Paul’s problem is, he’s not foaming at the mouth enough. No one on the left cares about gun control. They care about making Republicans look like farm animals. It’s classy stuff.
Month: June 2008
2009 Second Amendment Blog Bash
Bitter has revised the home page for 2009. We hope to see you there.
The HSUS Slippery Slope
This editorial from the Allentown Morning Call demands that pigeon shoots be outlawed in Pennsylvania:
There is opposition to these bills from some who fear that any restriction on one’s use of guns — or bow and arrow — might lead to greater restrictions of the Second Amendment. And so, the bills languish in committees. We have no quarrel with those who wish to hunt game animals in the wild. But a pigeon shoot is not hunting.
Well, except that later in the article, it’s pretty obvious that you’ve been talking to the Humane Society of the United States:
The state’s best-known pigeon shoot was in Hegins Township, Schuylkill County, where the Fred Coleman Memorial Pigeon Shoot began in 1933 as a means of giving prizes and raising money to feed hungry citizens and to support local charities. The spectacle died a natural death there, but according to the Humane Society, 22 others were held here last year. Though most are not widely publicized they are just as objectionable.
And yes, they do have an agenda to ban hunting in the United States. Now, I should make my biases clear here: I hate pigeons. I think they are basically rats with wings, and I don’t have much sympathy for them. That said, I personally would not particularly want to attend a pigeon shoot, unless it was on the SEPTA platform at 30th Street Station in Philly. As to whether it should be illegal, well, if the HSUS is the one pushing it, I’ll oppose. They have an agenda, and Pennsylvania sportsmen, even the vast majority who do not shoot trap with live birds instead of clay birds, should be skeptical of their motives and goals. HSUS has followed the path of the anti-gun movement and taken a divide and conquer strategy to outlaw hunting piecemeal. They are no friends of hunters. They were instrumental in getting a ban on dove hunting passed in Michigan. An overall ban, not just on using them in trap shooting. Even if you wanted to hunt doves in Michigan because dove is tasty, now you can’t, thanks to HSUS.
Blue Trail Range
There’s a range in Connecticut that’s under threat of being closed. Reports like this sound a bit fishy, and, being the skeptical guy I am, I decided to take a look at the range area.
Mr. DiNatale is one of several Durham residents who have complained that their homes are getting hit by stray bullets from the Blue Trail Range & Gun Store a mile away in Wallingford.
Tri-Mountain State Park straddles a 500-foot-high ridge that lies between Blue Trail and the homes. Mr. DiNatale says the bullets are also landing in the park, a violation of state law and a clear threat to a popular hiking trail that winds through it.
Though it now looks like they are fighting back, and asking for donations to fight the legal battle, to make improvements, and to remain open. It’s not going to be cheap to make the needed improvements to that range.
Take a look at the range yourself. The positions in question are on the 200 yard range, which is here. You can see a topographical map of the area here. Running some numbers through the ballistics computer, based on a typical .308 round, it is possible for a bullet to be fired over the mountain and land in the residential area about 2600 yards away at a velocity of 650 ft/sec and an energy of 157ft/lbs. The elevation needed was less than 20 degrees. That’s a problem. The state park is not directly in the line of fire, and runs behind the mountain, which is safe, in the portion which is in the line of fire.
I’m not a range expert, but based on what I do know, it seems they will need to construct a high berm and baffles, along the 200 yard shooting line to prevent errant shots from leaving the range and heading over the mountain. Our club protects against errant shots with a wood construction wall filled with crushed stone on the side boundaries of the range, and a series of baffles that go out for about 30 yards directly above the line of fire, and two giant berms, so the only thing you can see on the range is baffle and berm. We’re located in a suburban area, so these things are a must.
There’s no reason Blue Trail range has to close. A range can be made safe even for areas which have in recent years become densely populated. Hopefully Blue Trail will win its fight to stay open, will become a safer range, and everyone can go away happy. Encroachment of development is a serious problem for ranges, but it’s a manageable problem.
I Think This CCW Arrest …
… can safely be chalked up to idiocy. Namely because of this:
Rollert explained that he had been shooting his mother’s 9 mm Glock handgun and his brother’s 40-caliber Glock handgun earlier that day and decided to go to Wal-Mart to buy ammunition to replace what he had used, bringing the gun to make sure that the ammunition he bought fit into it, the complaint stated. He put a leather jacket on over the body armor and belt, he said, in order “to be safe and hide everything” and not create a disturbance.
Upon entering the store, the complaint stated, Rollert encountered a Wal-Mart employee and opened his jacket, telling the employee, “I don’t want you to worry, I got a loaded gun on.”
Is there a charge for being a complete idiot? I don’t even want to think about how he planned to make sure the ammunition “fit,” or why he was wearing body armor to go shooting (I would think it’s the other shooters who need to be wearing body armor around this guy).
This would be something I’d expect the Brady Campaign to pick up for their blog, except that it doesn’t involve any dead children.
New Word for Today
Deodand, thanks to Tam who suggests it’s still alive and well in California. Never heard of that before, but it’s quite fitting for this circumstance.
Bradys Retreat from Heller Concession
Jacob has the videos. Take a look. Seeing the expression on Helmke’s face, it almost looks as if his punishment was having to be locked up in a room while Dennis droned on about collective rights in a rather snoozy attempt to undo the damage the ABC News article wrought.
The Truth Gets Its Pants On
Judge Kozinski’s wife responds to the latest incident of yellow journalism on the part of the LA Times. Unfortunately, the lie is already halfway around the world. I agree with Kevin.
Polling on the First Amendment
The Brady Campaign is always quick to remind us that while an overwhelming number of Americans support the second amendment, there are still a lot of people that support some vague thing called “gun control.” Rachel Lucas points to some interesting polling on the first amendment, in regards to “hate speech”.
88% “guard†free speech but only 53% have any sort of a clue as to what that means. Since it would be silly to imagine that as time goes on, more people will get the clue, I’m guessing that in another few decades, we’ll have laws just like France and Canada. Awesome.
The poll basically shows that while 88% believe in the first amendment, only 53% oppose laws regulating “hate speech”, with 28% favoring it, and 19% undecided. I don’t share Rachel’s pessimism about things going downhill from here, however. We’ve shown that public support for the second amendment can be enhanced when people start understanding the issue. I don’t see why the first amendment has to be exempt from that.
More Historical Destruction
This time in an Oakland gun buyback:
The guns collected in February were donated to the Crucible, an Oakland industrial arts workshop, where they’ll be melted and transformed into a peace sculpture.
Ray Gaul, a retired Oakland police officer, was happy to bid farewell to his firearms. He surrendered a pistol that he used in the Korean War and another handgun he carried when he was off duty during his police career.
“It was a little hard giving up the one from Korea, but it was time to let them go. I don’t need them anymore,” said Gaul, who lives in Alameda and said he’d invest his $500 in a savings account. “What’s sad is that crime’s still so bad. I don’t think you’re ever going to get all the guns off the street.”
Argh! A collector would, I’m sure, have been happy give far more than $250 bucks for that pistol, and it would have preserved that bit of our history. Now it will go to make “peace art.” Only in California.