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.
Year: 2008
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.
Boycotting the AP?
Seems there’s a movement afoot to do just that. More here, here, and here. Count me in.
Hat Tip to Instapundit
Difficulty of Enforcing the Lead Bullet Ban
The LA Times has <sarcasm>a remarkably pro hunting piece</sarcasm>, describing how difficult it will be to enforce California’s lead ammo ban, and suggests the fact that the bullets being expensive, and gas prices, might end up just making hunters give up the sport, which would be the “condor’s best friend.”
No mention of the billions of dollars that hunters pour into conservation efforts that will end up being lost if the largest state in the union manages to effectively extinguish hunting within its borders.
Quote of the Day
This election brings us what is probably one of the worst match-ups in presidential history. We’re running a conservative democrat against a Marxist, and for some reason I can’t seem to get real excited about our options here.
Read the whole thing.
A Right to Keep and Bear Credit Cards
Barack Obama isn’t too keen on the right to bear arms, but he certainly thinks people who are irresponsible with credit cards deserve some extra “rights”.
Alea iacta est
The VPC are expecting a grand victory against the vile forces of the NRA.
The Reset Button
Kevin Baker talks again about the “reset” button. I’ve said previously, any pressing of said button will have to be instigated by a state government, rather than through actions of individuals or groups of individuals. That gets hard when states basically suckle at the federal teat, but I don’t see any other way to stand up to the federal government that won’t end badly. We already have some examples of states willing to make token gestures. The big problem is, we’re not losing our freedom by the guillotine, but by death of a thousand cuts. It’s hard to convince other people that “This encroachment has to be it. The line has been crossed.”
Personally, I don’t think we’re there yet, but I think it’s not unwise to whip up some resentment of federal meddling in matters they have no business in, within state legislatures. What Oklahoma has done is a start.