Month: October 2008

Open Carry Loss in Court

Looks like the guy who got arrested open carrying at an Obama rally is going to trial:

District Judge Douglas Loughner ruled in Beaver County Court Monday that John Noble, 50, of 1063 Willowbrook Drive should stand trial on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and disrupting a public meeting, stemming from the Sept. 29 rally for Democratic presidential running mates Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The stakes are high on this.  If the state prevails in court here, people who open carry in a public place will be risking being arrested for disorderly conduct.  This is a big part of the reason I’ve been a pain in the ass about not provoking confrontations unnecessarily.  It was entirely predictable that trouble was to be found going to an Obama rally openly armed.  I think there’s no ground for the charges brought.  I really hope a judge agrees with that, or we’re all screwed.

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. Obama Gun Protester Cleared on Disorderly Charge
  2. Setback for Concealed Carry in California
  3. Open Carry Troubles in Wisconsin

Sporting Purposes

Blackfork relays to us a video of the Panola County Club Championship for 2008.  Sounds like this club is lucky enough to have several high masters.  You will notice which types of rifles seem to be preferred; exactly the type our local congress critters Patrick Murphy and Alyson Schwartz have signed on to ban:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsZq8laE390[/youtube]

These matches don’t just happen in Texas.  They happen all over Pennsylvania too.  My club isn’t lucky enough to have a 600 yard range, but we make due at 200 using reduced targets to approximate distance.  This language in HR1022 should tell you exactly the kind of underhanded gun banners Schwartz and Murphy really are:

A semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General. In making the determination, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any Federal law enfocement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.

You can forget about your M1 Garand too.  There are plenty of other semi-auto rifles that have their roots in a military design.  Note the last part, which says that just because a firearm actually is used in sport doesn’t mean it’s for sporting purposes.  In fact, it demands the US Attorney General presume as much.

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  1. McCarthy’s Shopping List
  2. Interview on “Sporting Purposes”
  3. On Sporting Purposes

MSNBC Tries To Do a Good Gun Article

I’m always amused by the lack of knowledge of reporters:

But the semi-automatic ammunition used in one of the weapons would have been illegal under an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004

Semi-automatic ammunition?  What’s that?

That question, debated for almost 200 years, was first directly addressed by the Supreme Court in June 2008, when the court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the Second Amendment refers to gun ownership as an “individual right,” affirming in the District of Columbia v. Heller case that a citywide ban on handguns was unconstitutional.

Except it hasn’t been debated for 200 years.  Not even really 100 years.  You won’t find any piece of writing from the 18th or 19th century that speaks to the Second Amendment as a collective right.  That notion didn’t come about until the 20th Century.

The proposals put forward by Obama, on the other hand, indicate a preference toward government restrictions intended to curb crime. During a debate on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, Obama described the right to bear arms as parallel to the right to own private property. In both cases, he said, local governments can regulate how the right is used, as with zoning laws in the case of property.

A preference to control crime, or control guns?  Controlling guns doesn’t control crime.  Didn’t you just admit in a previous paragraph that DC was the Murder Capital of the U.S. despite the ban?

But I’m mostly nitpicking.  Overall, it presents both sides of the issue well.  I just wish reporters would speak to experts more often to try to clear up facts.

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  1. State of the Union
  2. Steve Israel Looks to Count Juvenile Convictions
  3. Separation of Powers

AFL-CIO Turning it On

Looks like the AFL-CIO is coming out big time for Obama:

“We’re like the angel on the other shoulder, saying, ‘Remember, you’ve got to get your other kid through college,'” says Mike Podhorzer, deputy political director for the AFL-CIO.

We’re like an angel on your shoulder to tell you that your rights don’t matter.  Come to us, we’ll feed you, take care of you, make sure that kid can go off to college.  Don’t pay any attention that Obama wants to redact 1/10th of the Bill of Rights.  Don’t worry about that.  Don’t worry that he’ll have to raise your taxes to pay for everything he’s promised.  We got your back!  How’s this for condescending?

Those voters “need to connect to their need for economic change so that it’s stronger than their fear of cultural change,” says Karen Nussbaum, Working America’s executive director. “I think it’s a challenge for a lot of white people to vote for a black candidate. They’ve never been asked to do it before.”

Dammit!  If only we could get these racist white working class Pennsylvanians to vote for a black man, we’d have this election in the bag!  Don’t forget honey, it was the conservative parts of Pennsylvania that voted for Lynn Swann.  Last I checked, he was a black man.  Don’t say they have never been asked to vote for a black man before, they have, and they did.  It was Philadelphia and its suburbs that put Rendell into office.

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  2. We’re Not Stupid
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Blue Trail Range Fundraiser

The Blue Trail range fundraiser, to help raise money for their mounting legal bills, was a great success.  One of the gun bloggers managed to attend:

One thing of note that concerned me. (And I apologize if this offends anyone.)  But I was rather distraught by the general age of the attendees. Many being what I’d label as either elderly or Vietnam vet age. I do not say this as insult, I greatly respect both groups.  But the twenty and thirty year olds were in very low quantity in comparison.  This put a chill down my spine…

I’ve seen many churches with similar demographics, and many churches that are now condominiums because once those demographic groups pass; the church no longer has enough members to sustain it.

There are plenty of young shooters out there.  Go to any gun show, you’ll see a mix of the young and the old.  Go to any club or community event, and you’ll see only old people.  Young people are not involved in the issue politically.  There are a few reasons for this:

  • Young people are eschewing civic organizations as a whole.
  • Young people have less time to devote to civic engagement.
  • Young people seem to be less interested in competitive shooting.
  • A lot of these guys don’t know defeat.  I was nineteen when the Brady Act passed.  I was twenty when the assault weapons ban passed.  A lot of these guys in their twenties don’t realize that gun control will come for them.  I see the guns these guys check out at the shows.  They really don’t know they are a target and can lose their rights.

He’s observed something here that I do think is a real problem.  If we don’t create a new generation of gun leaders, when the existing generation gets too old or dies off, were screwed.  People have to get involved if we want to keep this right.  There really is no other alternative.

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  1. The Aging Shooting Sports
  2. Should Kids Be Allowed to Shoot?
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“I’m An NRA Member, And I Support Obama”

You have to admit, it takes a lot of guts to get up in front of a whole country, and admit that you’re a fool.

UPDATE: This guy isn’t fooled:

You know, I’d love to believe that Obama is cool with guns and hunting, but when the nation’s largest and most radical group that wants to ban hunting thinks he’s peachy, it makes this middle-aged redneck think that maybe Barack is full of B’crap and his “pro gun/hunting” spiel is just another con job spun by the King of Obfuscation. But that’s just me.

Any hunters who trusts a Chicago politician from Hyde Park to look after his interests is nuts, to say the least.

UPDATE: Of course, that’s not stopping Ray Schoenke from trying to convince hunters that cuddling up with the environmental lobby that wants to ban their ammunition is the way to go.  Let’s not also forget that AHSA has endorsed Obama, who is also endorsed by HSUS, who want to ban hunting.  Some hunting group eh?

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. Blue Dog Support of Obama
  2. Sportsmen for Obama
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Best Blog Icon Ever

I love this guy’s blog icon.  It goes so well with the title.  Since my pseudonym has its roots with a certain baroque era composer, I wish I could have thought up something this good.  Of course, I think Beethoven probably has better public recognition than Johann Sebastian Bach.

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