According to the Brady Campaign, the church shooter in Knoxville used a super-deadly high powered common bird gun to carry out his deadly rampage.  Far cry from what they were saying yesterday, which implied it was one of those super-scary Saiga-12s which, you know, fire the exact same shell.
Year: 2008
Heller v. DC
That’s right, it’s not DC v. Heller. Dick Heller is suing the District of Colombia once again over their new gun laws. We wish Mr. Heller the best of luck.
UPDATE: You can see a copy of the complaint here.
UPDATE: Now that I’ve had time to read, it looks like they are basically asking for an injunction against:
- The ballistics testing nonsense which requires an undefined fee.
- The nonsense about not being able to register a semi-automatic pistol under DC’s ridiculous definition of “machine gun”
- They ask for any further relief the court may want to offer.
What they are not asking for an injunction on is whether semi-autos that can shoot more than 12 rounds from a magazine. Also, again, they aren’t challenging the registration itself. That’ll all be later cases. Pick the low hanging fruit first.
Brady Donations to Patrick Murphy
I have obtained a Federal Election Commission filing from the Brady Campaign’s Political Action Committee. You will notice a $1000 donation to Patrick Murphy for Congress dated October 13th, 2006. Right before the election.
Little doubt here that Murphy is trying to get some political cover on the gun issue in a county full of gun owners. That way when people raise his anti-gun record, he can point other pro-gun measures he’s signed on to as proof that he’s really not against us. He has to triangulate on this issue. I am not the only car with an NRA sticker on it in this neighborhood, and there’s a gun shop within walking distance. My local club has 1200 members, and there are more than a dozen other ranges and clubs in the county, many of which are also rather large.
Pro-gun forces in Southeastern Pennsylvania have largely been unorganized. NRA has a presence here, but few are standing up and getting involved. Hopefully, we can start turning that around. Pennsylvania’s future as a pro-gun states absolutely depends on the Philadelphia suburbs. We can see what the result is of the suburbs voting in lock step with the city in Ed Rendell’s governorship. By contrast to Rendell, Barack Less Filling, Tastes Great Obama failed to take the suburbs, and failed to take the state.
Gun owners in other parts of Pennsylvania are quick to dismiss the Philadelphia suburbs as a lost cause, but by doing so, are sowing the seeds of their own doom. We have a shooting culture here. It’s showing some health problems, but it does exist. Hopefully we can show people in the rest of the state that we’re worth saving.
Lots of Camp Perry News
Looks like Breda paid a visit to Camp Perry this weekend, where the National Matches are taking place as we speak. No word on whether she managed to steal any pens, but I do have to say, that AR-15 looks nice on her. I think she needs to get one. If she does, she can shoot in our gun blog matches.
Bitter offers a pretty snarky assessment of NRA’s Camp Perry Live blog. This is their first year trying anything like this.
Coverage of Knoxville Church Shooting
SayUncle has the coverage. Just keep scrolling.
Patrick Murphy Signs on to National Concealed Carry
Patrick Murphy has cosponsored H.R. 861, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act. According to Thomas, he signed on as a cosponsor on July 22nd. That’s a few days after we got a visit from one is his perky volunteers. I should note that Congressman Murphy has used his concealed carry license as political cover on this issue before. Hell, even I bought it before I had idea what his record would be.
But the fact of the matter is the guy signed on to a pretty serious and draconian ban of most semi-automatic firearms, including the most popular target rifles that are sold in the US today. He also is conspicously absent from the Congressional Amicus Brief supporting Mr. Heller in overturning the ban on guns in Washington D.C. Patrick Murphy was one of only six members of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation who did not sign on to the brief.
One wonders how Congressman Murphy thinks we’re supposed to carry guns, when he doesn’t seem to have any issue with guns being banned.
Home Ownership Joys
My patio awning is all rotted to hell. Both the roof and the fascia board were put on wrong, causing the roof to curl up at the lip, making a pool of water looking for some place to go. Well, it found a place
I’m home from work today because we have some contractors coming over today to give us estimates. I thought about doing it myself, but I think I would probably take too long.
EVC Site
We have established a web site for our EVC activities in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District. Obviously one of the main things we wanted to highlight was Congressman Patrick Murphy’s record on guns. We will be developing fliers to distribute to clubs, ranges and gun shops, to make sure folks know that Patrick Murphy would like to make sure folks like this find it difficult or impossible to compete in their chosen sport. No doubt that many clay shooters and bird hunters would be interested to discover the poor wording in HR1022 bans all semi-automatic shotguns as well.
We will be as ready as we can hope to be once the endorsements come out.
The .223 of Beer
I asked Bitter to head out and obtain, for our sacreligious three bean chili, some cheap beer. I said “Maybe a 12 pack of Rolling Rock or something.” What she got was an eight pack of Rolling Rock, since the local bar (thanks to Pennsylvania’s byzantine liquor laws) only has limited 12 pack selection. Well, eight pack would be fine, except that they are bottles of beer apparently marketed to midgets, at seven whole ounces a piece. So really, the eight pack is like a four and a half pack. I told Bitter:
“These are the .223 of beer. I mean, sure, it’s beer, but it takes twice as many to knock a man down.”
I’ll be sticking to my full house Victory Hop Devils from this point forward. It might not be the prototypical “cheap beer” but it’s cheap enough, and it’s a hell of a lot better than Rolling Rock.
Quote of the Day
The Mrs. often asks why I carry to church. It’s because shootings keep happening at churches.
It’s often the places you least think you’d need a gun that you most need one. I’m going to bet the Mrs. doesn’t ask this particular question anymore.