The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
I don’t know why you need ads like this in a country where handguns are strictly banned:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-4JDlDs0E[/youtube]
You’d almost think the laws were ineffective, and only resulted in criminals having guns. Nah! Can’t be. That’s crazy talk!
Hat tip to reader Guav
UPDATE: Here’s the blog associated with the video.
AP is apparently expecting us to pay by the words for words exerpted from their articles. It sucks to be part of a dying medium, I’m sure, but fair use is fair use. Here’s another fun tidbit:
It gets better! If you pay to quote the AP, but you offend the AP in so doing, the AP “reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if Publisher or its agents finds Your use of the licensed Content to be offensive and/or damaging to Publisher’s reputation.”
The mainstream media is declaring war on blogs. We have to be ready and willing to circle the wagons to protect our medium. Do we have laywers who would be willing to work cheap in the event a blog gets sued? I think it’s time to start lining that up. A lot is at stake.
GunPundit points to a picture I’ve seen making the rounds through forums and what not. It shows an Iowa police officer holding a gun on a driver. I’ve variously seen this attributed to police enforcing a checkpoint with excessive force. Didn’t blog about it when I first saw it, because we had no context.  Well, here’s the context:
After being denied re-entry to a flooded neighborhood, Rick Blazek, 53, returned to his vehicle as a state trooper used his police vehicle to block the checkpoint, according to the news release.
“Blazek drove his vehicle toward the state trooper and struck the state trooper three times with his vehicle,” the release said.
Police told Blazek to get out of his vehicle, and when he refused, “the driver’s window was broken out because the doors were locked and Blazek was removed from his vehicle,” according to the release.
The trooper was not injured. Blazek, who was arrested and charged with assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The trooper in question was fully justified in drawing his pistol on the driver as they took him into custody. Cars are deadly weapons. Whether or not the police were justified in keeping a man from his home isn’t material. You’re allowed to use force to overcome an unlawful restraint (different from kidnapping), but not deadly force.
Whether or not one can be kept from one’s home is a matter of emergency powers provisions under the Iowa Code, which seem to allow for “Control ingress and egress to and from a disaster area, the movement of persons within the area, and the occupancy of premises in such area.” and “A peace officer, when in full and distinctive uniform or displaying a badge or other insignia of authority, may arrest without a warrant any person violating or attempting to violate in such officer’s presence any order or rule, made pursuant to this chapter. This authority shall be limited to those rules which affect the public generally.”
So under the Iowa Code, the governor can prevent persons from entering a declare disaster area, and the police are empowered to enforce edicts issued under the Governor’s disaster powers.
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.
Bitter has revised the home page for 2009. We hope to see you there.
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.
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.
… 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.
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.