I can remember back when Troopergate meant officers in the Arkansas State Patrol cruising around looking for women to perform sex acts on the Governor. Now apparently it means the Dems sticking up for wife beaters.
Year: 2008
Manion Running Last Year’s Issue
Bucks Right has a very insightful post on Congressional Candidate Tom Manion’s latest ad that’s running on the Iraq War. I agree with him. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be supporting Manion in the election, but I worry if his campaign is spending its very limited cash resources running ads that aren’t going to win him the election. No doubt the GOP fronted Manion because he could go toe to toe with Murphy on the Iraq issue, but that’s fallen from the front of people’s minds this election, and he’s going to need to distinguish himself on other issues if he wants to win.
Last Weekend for Rifle Match
This will be the last weekend to shoot the Gun Blog Rifle Match. Don’t worry if you’re last minute, I’m going to be shooting this weekend too. Entries are due by midnight on the 21st, but I’ll make you all a deal — as long as you get me your entries before I post the results (which will take a week or so), I will continue to count them.
For the fall match, I’m thinking of doing a three position Kalashnikov match at 50 yards, in addition to bringing the smallbore match in to 25 yards this fall to bring in some more shooters to that category. But before I decide to do a Kalashnikov match, I thought I’d check with folks to make sure enough of you actually own one. Any Kalashnikov will do. Any AK-47, AK-74, PSL, or RPK variants you want to shoot are fine. We’ll be able to use standard steel cased ammo, so no one has to reload if they don’t want to.
New York Times Not Happy
Perhaps it’s high time they realized that in the rest of the country outside the immediate area of New York City, people actually do believe the Second Amendment means what it says:
In all, 85 Democrats joined with a nearly unanimous block of Republican lawmakers to pass the dangerous measure 266 to 152, a reminder that catering to the gun lobby during election season is a bipartisan affliction. The bill was pushed by the National Rifle Association and opposed by the District Police Department.
At some point the New York Times, and a lot of other papers, need to face up to the fact that they lost. Sorry, but you guys lost. New York City’s gun laws will be next, once we skewer Mayor Daley’s Chicago on the foil of the Second Amendment.
Spread The Lightworker’s Word!
Barack Obama is telling his supporters to spread the word that he supports the Second Amendment. We’ll have to see if I run into any light bringers when Bitter and I work the Valley Forge Gun Show tomorrow to make sure everyone there knows about Obama’s record on the Second Amendment. Hopefully we’ll get a few more volunteers out of this effort too.
McCain Palinware
Bitter is promoting a line of McCain/Palin wear. If you buy one, proceeds from the sales are donated to the Unemployed Blogger Fund.
The Two NRA’s
Dave Hardy relays a funny story about the National Rifle Association sharing the same building with the National Recovery Administration in the 30s. Hilarity ensued. I guess the folks in Fairfax won’t be leasing out any of their real estate to the National Restaurant Association any time soon.
The Brady’s Were Right, But Dishonest
Now that the Brady’s have chosen to mention at least one aspect of DC law that they were concerned about, it’s possible to actually evaluate their concerns without interference from all the hype and hysterics.
The Brady’s were actually correct to point out that the changes to the DC law would have allowed open carrying of long arms, but there’s a catch. Technically speaking, it’s never been illegal to carry a long gun on or about your person in DC provided you had a trigger lock on it, and it was properly registered according to DC law. So even before Heller, you could have slung your evil 50 Caliber Sniper Rifle and walked down Pennsylvania Ave with it, provided you had it properly registered and either taken the bolt out and put it in your pocket, or placed a trigger lock on it.
HR6691 would have repealed the registration requirement, the trigger lock law, and The District’s blanket ban on semi-automatic firearms. When it repealed the ban on carrying firearms in the home, it did so this way:
SEC. 9. REMOVE CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR CARRYING A FIREARM IN ONE’S DWELLING OR OTHER PREMISES.
Section 4(a) of the Act of July 8, 1932 (47 Stat. 651; sec. 22-4504(a), D.C. Official Code) is amended–
(1) in the matter before paragraph (1), by striking `a pistol,’ and inserting the following: `except in his dwelling house or place of business or on other land possessed by that person, whether loaded or unloaded, a pistol,’; and
(2) by striking `except that:’ and all that follows through `(2) If the violation’ and inserting `except that if the violation’.
If you look at the section of the DC Official Code that’s being modified here, you would see that it only adds an exception for one’s home and place of business. The amendment passed the other day, which was to HR6842 is modified thusly:
SEC. 9. REMOVE CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR CARRYING A FIREARM IN ONE’S DWELLING OR OTHER PREMISES.
(a) In General- Section 4(a) of the Act of July 8, 1932 (47 Stat. 651; sec. 22–4504(a), D.C. Official Code) is amended–
(1) in the matter before paragraph (1), by striking `a pistol,’ and inserting the following: `except in his dwelling house or place of business or on other land possessed by that person, whether loaded or unloaded, a firearm,’; and
(2) by striking `except that:’ and all that follows through `(2) If the violation’ and inserting `except that if the violation’.
(b) Conforming Amendment- Section 5 of such Act (47 Stat. 651; sec. 22–4505, D.C. Official Code) is amended–
(1) by striking `pistol’ each place it appears and inserting `firearm’; and
(2) by striking `pistols’ each place it appears and inserting `firearms’.
So the Brady claim that the bill would have allowed the open carrying of long guns was actually true, but what they failed to mention was this was always DC law. Their claim that the eventual bill introduced on the house as an amendment to Norton’s bill fixed this “problem” is also true. But that didn’t stop opponents of this bill from continuing to dishonestly claim all manner of hysterics.
Also not mentioned is that in most US states, it’s perfectly lawful to carry a long arm openly without any kind of license or registration. I would challenge anyone from The Brady Campaign to attempt to openly carry a loaded AR-15 past the Pennsylvania Capitol Building in Harrisburg, or any other state capital where it’s legal, and see if the police don’t stop to ask you a few questions.
Finally, It Is Revealed
In Helmke’s latest diatribe he finally reveals the NRA’s treachery in making sure terrorists can roam DC armed to the teeth:
Only just before the bill was introduced on the House floor did the NRA fix their “mistake” and amend the legislation to prohibit open-carrying of assault weapons. This shameless effort should have been the final nail in the coffin of whatever credibility the gun lobby had left.
Except that even after it was introduced onto the floor, you guys were still claiming it was allowing terrorists to openly carry all manner of military weaponry openly in public, even though it was apparently “fixed”. I will look into this later, to see whether there is any merit to these claims at all. It would be much easier to judge if the Brady Campaign would learn to speak in a language other than raving hysterics.
Machine Tools
The Arizona Rifleman is getting some experience with machine tools, and thinks about how easy it would be to manufacture naughty parts for guns. It’s actually not that difficult to manufacture firearms if you have a reasonably well equipped machine shop. The technology for modern firearms is a century old at this point, and you could fit the equipment necessary in a residential garage or basement. You don’t see much of these types of operations today because of a lack of demand, since it’s easier for criminals to buy from existing black market stock. But in the UK, it’s becoming common, and it would be common here too if guns are ever outlawed.