2008 – Page 150 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Changes in the Shooting Community

Michael Bane has a great post up about how the shooting community is changing, with hunters and shooters ending up on a more equal footing with each other in terms of numbers, and the effect shooters are having on the industry:

We could not continue, much less go into another election cycle, with everyone, including Congress, acting like “hunting” and “shooting” were synonymous, so all anybody needed to do to suck up to us was conserve some wetlands and talk about ducks!

I guess someone forgot to tell Bob Ricker and Ray Schoenke.

Positive Article in LA Times on Open Carry

Sometimes the media can be fair to us.Â They are very right about this statement:

Most of the time people don’t notice Jensen’s gun. That’s not uncommon, said John Pierce, a law student and computer consultant in Virginia who is a co-founder of OpenCarry.org.

“People are carrying pagers, BlackBerrys, cellphones,” Pierce said. “They see a black lump on your belt and their eyes slide off.”

I’ve often had people ask me why I carry, like it’s some kind of great burden.Â In most cases, people just have a gut reaction to the idea.Â It’s not that they are afraid, though some are, it’s more that they tend to assume “Well, normal people don’t do that.Â Why would anyone want to carry a gun around with them?”

Reality is I find a gun to be far less of a burden to carry than a cell phone or a Blackberry.Â Â For one, the gun doesn’t bug me regularly to pay attention to it.Â It’s a passive device.Â For two, I can’t count the number of cell phone clips I’ve broken by clipping it in doorways or againts walls.Â I’ve had my Glock do the same, and I think the doorway is getting damaged before the Glock.Â It’s made to last.Â Thirdly, I don’t have to worry about whether my Glock is charged sufficiently to make it through the rest of the day, and I’ve never had to scramble around looking for an outlet because it went dead unexpectedly.Â Of course, if the Brady Campaign gets its way, we’ll all be carrying around smart guns that barely work and has all the same burdens as a cell phone.

The electronics we carry around are quite a burden if you think about it.Â A gun, comparitively, doesn’t see much day to day use, but if you do need one, you really need one, and I’ve always been one to err on the side of caution.

Blaming Pennsylvania Again

In the Trentonian yesterday: “Jersey gun problem PA’s fault”:

New Jerseyâ€™s biggest obstacle to controlling gun-related crimes could be the state of Pennsylvania, according to federal data analyzed by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The vast majority of gun crimes committed in Jersey involve guns that were sold from another state, and most of those recovered firearms came from the Keystone State in 2007.

This data, compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, show that only 27.9 percent of crime guns recovered last year in New Jersey came from Garden State dealers. Of the 1,467 out-of-state crime guns seized by law-enforcement agencies in Jersey last year, most of them (285) originated from Pennsy gun dealers.

Of course, what they don’t mention is that most gun shops in New Jersey have closed down due to the opporessive gun regulations in that state.Â The shooting and hunting culture in that state has all but been completely extinguished by regulations that can land you seven years in prison by stopping at a Dunkin Donuts drivethrough on the way back from the range for a cup of coffee.

They don’t have to make guns illegal if they just make owning them so legally risky that no one bothers, except the criminals.Â Â Now they want to do the same thing to Pennsylvania; to destroy its hunting and shooting culture, and close down thousands of gun shops in the state.Â Â No thanks.Â Â The end result will still be criminals getting guns, they will just smuggle them from somewhere else.

People like Bryan Miller won’t stop until they destroy the second amendment.Â They might not destroy it outright, but they can destroy it through attrition.Â It happened in New Jersey, and we can’t let it happen here.

Civics Test

Through Ricketyclick, I found this interesting civics literacy quiz.Â Â Go see how you compare to most of the college freshman and seniors today.Â I missed 4 questions, for an A.Â I missed 19, 27, 36, and 58.Â Â It’s a sixty question test.Â I sometimes wish you had a pass a basic civics test to vote, but there’s probably no way to do that without it getting abused.

I Reject Your False Messiah!

Crap like this scares the hell out of me:

Dismiss it all you like, but I’ve heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who’ve been intuitively blown away by Obama’s presence – not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence – to say it’s just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.

Here’s where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

The reverence of Ronald Reagan that you get from conservatives can get kind of old sometimes, but you will never hear something like this from a Republican or libertarian.Â We do not worship our politicians.Â We don’t want them to help us find a new way of being.Â We do not want them to help us evolve.Â Generally, we want them to leave us the hell alone to live our lives.Â Obama can try all he wants, he doesn’t speak to my soul.Â He is just a man.Â Repeat after me lefties: he is just a man.

I’d say thanks to Instapundit, but now I will have to spend the rest of the night trying to restore my faith in humanity.

Is Jacksonville More Dangerous Than London?

In terms of violent crime rates, it’s not even close.

UPDATE: Looking at the involved statistics, I’ve noticed one problem.Â The London statistics for violent crime include common assault, which isn’t included in the Jacksonville and Ft. Meyers statitics, so you have to strip that figure out for London in order to make a more valid comparison, which results in London’s violent crime rate being 1717 per 100,000 population, which is still higher than Jacksonville and Fort Meyers.Â Still, you’re far less likely to be killed in London than in either city, statistically speaking, but I’m not sure how comforted I am by “Don’t worry, our criminals will just beat the hell out of you!”

Pro-Gun Bills Up for Vote in Senate

Looks like HB 1845 is going to be up for a vote in the Senate Judiciary Commitee next week.Â This includes the provision allowing carrying of firearms into Pennsylvania State Parks, prevents confiscations in the event of a state of emergency, and allows for sheriffs to issue emergency LTCFs for people who’s lives are actively threatened.

Let’s get this onto the floor and up for a vote in the full senate, so that we can get this on Rendell’s desk.

Don’t Try This Here

Hat tip to Eric for this incident in Holland:

At a fashion show to promote tolerance of gay people on April 30, a national holiday in Holland, celebrating the birthday of the late Queen Juliana, a group of ten Muslim youths dragged gay model Mike Du Pree down from the catwalk, beating him up and breaking his nose. A second model who tried to help out was also attacked.

Our gays can shoot back. If I see a bunch of violent thugs of a proportedly peaceful religion beating up on a gay guy in broad daylight on a public street, I can too.

Taco Grip Banned

Mr. Completely’s club banned the Taco Grip for bowling pin matches after he apparently won too much:

Last Fall it was finally coming together, and although still not as fast as other techniques, having few misses made up the slack. This year I won the first three of four matches of the season. The “Rule Maker” decided that my shooting style should be banned, and he changed the rules, banning the way I shoot. There is no rules committee or any rules oversight of any kind, so he can do whatever he wants, and there is no appeal process to his decision.

There are a lot of jackasses out there, unfortunately.Â The guys I shoot IHMSA and Indoor Silhouette with at my club all seem to be nice folks to shoot with, so I’ve been lucky in that regard.Â They’ve all been encouraging and have helped me out.

But there are a lot of clubs out there that are run by jackasses.Â I’ve heard lots of stories from folks about various problems like this, or other things, such as black rifles being frowned on, or various definitions of “rapid fire” that tend to boil down to “we don’t like the way you look so you’re rapid firing, and we don’t like it.”Â Basically, it’s a lot of crap that’s going to destroy the shooting community.Â Shooting should be fun, and the goal of any club should be to maximize people’s enjoyment of the shooting sports.Â Yes, clubs need rules, and we can’t comprimise or cut corners on safety, but if your club is driving people away, you need to start looking at ways to change the leadership.Â The future of the shooting sports depends on a healthy and welcoming club culture.

An Afternoon with ATF

Joe tells the story.