The Virginia senate failed to override. Folks in Virginia… you need to punish Kaine’s party next election.
Via SayUncle
Year: 2008
Red’s Day in Court
Story in the Idaho press about Ryan’s day in court.
LA Times Article on Eric Thompson
Ahab points to (read his whole post, it makes a good point) this rather interesting article in the LA times on Eric Thompson, proprietor of Top Glock, who we mentioned last week. Back during the assault weapons ban, I ordered one of the few (and expensive) fifteen round magazines from TopGlock for my Glock 19. It’s never been used in a killing, and I hope to God is never is. I’m glad to see Mr. Thompson isn’t questioning his convictions when it comes to second amendment rights.
NRA Election Addendum
Bitter has more on a board candidate, Curtis Jenkins, who is reaching out to the blogosphere to help gain our support in the board elections. I think he deserves our consideration.
Oklahoma Lowering Carry Age?
Looks like they are looking into it. Indiana also allows people that are over 18 to obtain carry permits. Of course, federal law doesn’t allow anyone under 21 to buy a handgun, but there’s no law against possessing one.
I would imagine this has a chance of passing in a pistol packing legislature.
The Night of the Hildabeast
Now that Hillary has won Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, and seems to be on somewhat of a comeback heading into Pennsylvania, I am faced with a dilemma.
John McCain has the election sown up. My vote as a Republican would be meaningless, short of feeling better by lodging a protest vote for Ron Paul. What might not be meaningless would be to vote for Hillary in Pennsylvania’s primary, in hopes of keeping the bloodletting among the Democratic candidates going all the way up until the convention. I will call this The Breda Strategy, since even though I understand Rush Limbaugh has been calling for this, Breda is where I first got the idea.
I kind of like this idea, because it’s a way to avoid voting for McCain in the primary, but still help him out in the general election. But can I do it? Can I really pull the lever for that harpy? How will I feel if I help her win the primary and she actually beats McCain? I’d say I have a month to decide, but Pennsylvania’s primaries are closed, and the time to switch registration is fast approaching.
Clearly What We Need is More Guns!
I’m giving into a stereotype a bit here. But I’ve heard this type of accusation enough that I grow tired of it. From the comments of my post about CeaseFire PA board member Jennifer W. Stein:
You’re an idiot, gun nut, paranoid wacko. Need more guns? Yeah, sure we do.
Comment by JML on March 5th, 2008
As it turns out, JML is a local gun control activist who organizes gun control meetups in our local Philadelphia metro area. He probably knows Jennifer Stein personally, so I won’t take it too personally that he’s steamed I embarrassed her. I’d probably be a little pissed too if someone google ruined one of my friends’ reputations.
But I do mean to address the assertion that we think society “needs more guns.” Go back to my original arguments in that post about tolerance in a free society.  That seems to have been completely lost on our gun controlling friend here. We’re arguing that people should be free to have effective means to defend themselves and their families. We’re arguing that the Bill of Rights and the constitution mean something. We’re arguing that we have a right to preserve and defend our shooting sports. This has nothing to do with some simple belief in “more guns” and everything to do with freedom.
In truth this line of arguments belies something in the mindset of people passionate about gun control; that we’d be a safer society with fewer guns, and therefore we have to pass laws that will ensure that. I reject this dogma, so therefore they assume what I want is more guns, rather than more freedom. Their assumption is mistaken.
What An Agency!
Not just stifling dissent, but crushing it.
Obamamania
And to think, this University of Houston professor gets to shape young minds:
At Poe Elementary School, near Rice University, Marc Zimmerman, a 69-year-old University of Houston professor, said he voted for Obama, noting that the excitement surrounding the Illinois senator was contagious.
“I like being caught up in the wave,” he said.
Caught up in The Wave? Â You mean like this one?
Laurence Tribe Speaks Against Heller
In the Wall Street Journal. Tribe is a well respected constitutional scholar, so this isn’t a minor deal. He’s come out in favor of an individual right in his book on constitutional law, so this is somewhat of a surprise. Heller’s attorneys seem to be a bit surprised too. Tribe says:
But nothing I have discovered or written supports an absolute right to possess the weapons of one’s choice. The lower court’s decision in this case — the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found the District’s ban on concealable handguns in a densely populated area to be unconstitutional — went overboard. Under any plausible standard of review, a legislature’s choice to limit the citizenry to rifles, shotguns and other weapons less likely to augment urban violence need not, and should not, be viewed as an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of the people to keep or bear arms.
So we can interpret other liberties in the Bill of Rights to apply depending on geography and population density? Drugs are a scourge of the inner cities as well. Would Professor Tribe support standard of review for the fourth amendment which would allow house to house searches for drugs in urban areas, while leaving the fourth amendment well enough in tact in rural areas? I think most of us here would agree the fourth amendment is already subject to too lienent a standard of review. I see no reason to do the same to the second.
Worse than that, it would transform a constitutional provision clearly intended and designed to protect the people of the several states from an all-powerful national government into a restriction on the national government’s uniquely powerful role as governor of the nation’s capital, over which Congress, acting through municipal authorities of the District, exercises the same kind of plenary authority that it exercises over Fort Knox.
Fort Knox is a military installation. Is Professor Tribe attempting to argue that it would be appropriate to apply martial law over The District? I would hope not.
UPDATE: Dave Kopel has more.