2008 – Page 241 – Shall Not Be Questioned

What More Could They Want?

SayUncle answers the question about kind of gun control that advocates of such measures might want to think about.

Hillary Clinton, Life Long Hunter?

Pandering like this is almost enough to make me sick, but you have to imagine it’s not half as sickening to me as it is to the folks in the gun control movement:

Well, well. We wondered, did she have any hunting tales to tell? Did she ever shoot anything?

â€œA duck,â€ she answered a bit later in a press availability. â€œAnd a lot of tin cans, and a lot of targets, and some skeet.â€

Maybe she was spending time hanging out with that other life long hunter, Mitt Romney, in the duck blind, but I’m not buying it.Â Still, if people weren’t fooled by this stuff, politicians wouldn’t do it.

Via Gun Legislation & Politics in New York

No National Park Carry for You!

Harry Reid has decided he doesn’t want Hilly and Obama to have to vote on it (i.e. they will vote against it, which could become an issue in the election):

Republicans counter that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to protect the two leading Democratic candidates for president by shielding them from a politically difficult vote on an issue that many rural voters consider crucial.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the leading Republican contender for president, is a co-sponsor of the amendment, which would allow gun owners to carry loaded, accessible firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges. Current regulations ban gun owners from carrying easy-to-reach firearms onto lands managed by the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.

Is it political pandering on McCain’s part to co-sponsor this bill?Â Or are there real differences between McCain and Obillery on the gun issue?

Hat tip to Of Arms and the Law

Whistling Up a False Sense of Security

Breda takes on the notion of “rape whistles”Â I agree these are a poor substitute for fighting back, but I wouldn’t completely discount their utility.Â I mean, if you heard someone whistling frantically within close proximity of you, and after following the sound saw a man about to rape a woman, would you do nothing?Â Â I wouldn’t.Â Of course, that presumes that at least some of us have the capability to do something other than dial 911 and hope that help shows up in time.

Happy President’s Day

The good thing about today is that both Bitter and I have off from work, so we get an extra day.Â Â The bad news is, even if I didn’t have off from work today, I’d probably be taking off sick anyway, because the cold I came down with while camping made me toss and turn all night, so I feel like crud this morning.

Positive Media Spin

I’m with Dave, I can’t believe the main stream media would feature anything like this.Â Concealed carry reform was one of the greatest strokes of strategic brilliance the gun rights movement has ever had, and I’m not sure we’d be in the position we’re in today without.

Despite the fact that a relatively small number of people bother to get licenses to carry a concealed firearm, the impact has been substantial in terms of how public debate on gun control is framed.Â It has allowed us to shift the debate on this issue exlusively away from sporting uses and toward self-defense, not only in the home, but in general.Â Most Americans, even if they are wary on the gun issue, are perfectly accepting that a person has a right to defend their own life.Â Concealed carry has allowed us to tie that sentiment into the gun control debate, and created a large cadre of activists who are making for interesting stories for the media to report.

In the fact of more and more of these types of mass shooting, had we kept the debate mostly on sporting uses of firearms, and only on self-defense within the home, I believe we’d be losing; most Americans wouldn’t be willing to preserve sporting uses of firearms at, what they would believe, is the expense of their own safety, and that of their children.Â That we have the media stepping into the debate of whether young adults who are licensed to carry should be allowed to carry on campus is an amazing achievement, and should be a harbinger of doom for the gun control movement.

NRA Election Endorsements

Dave Hardy has a few of them.Â Â I’ll be talking more about this when I get my ballot.

We’re Back!

Winter camping in Luzerne & Sullivan County, up in northern Pennsylvania, went well.Â Didn’t freeze to death, despite temperatures in the teens.Â Overheard at the small roadside restaurant we stopped at this morning: two guys were talking about guns and hunting, with another couple at the table next to us talking about how much Hillary Clinton sucks.Â One town had a sign up as you entered town announcing the local sportsman’s club clay shoot the following week.Â Yep, we’re not in Philly anymore Toto, and it’s nice.

Central American Commies for Obama

Daniel Ortega likes him.Â For those of you who didn’t grow up during the cold war, and think Ortega is a line of taco products:

Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

Now all we need is an endorsement from Hugo Chavez.

Holmesburg Update

At the club last night, a few members of Holmesburg were talking about their continuing struggle with the City of Philadelphia to prevent from being closed down.Â Â Their web site has:

Yes, weâ€™re still here. Yes, weâ€™re still in business. No, itâ€™s notÂ a done deal. HF&GPA has four main priorities right now. They are to lobby the Fairmount Park Commission (FPC) for a lease, to get member dues for â€™08 in, to recruit new members and to complete the work on club ground that was postponed because of the threatened closing.Â Please see the Newsletter pages for more information. Thank you all for supporting your club leadership through these trying times. Brighter days are ahead if we stay the course and if we continue in our roles as responsible and hospitable sportsmen and women.

Which is roughly the same as last time I updated.Â They are still working with the city to get the lease, but apparently the administration change is making things take a bit longer, and that they may have to seek another extension while the negotiations continue.

I do hope the city does the right thing here.Â These folks are obviously not the ones shooting each other over drug turf wars in the City of Philadelphia, but I doubt that matters to a lot of folks who run that city.Â If they secure another lease, I will consider helping them out by joining.Â At the very least, I’ll at least show up at a few of their matches for moral support.