The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
For your amusement, Jim Geraghty has posted a list of at least 16 promises from Obama that have expired within his first 100 days. (For you non-mathy readers, that’s an average of one broken promise every 6 days.)
Jim notes that once his readers find the post, he will no doubt receive many more submissions. I’ll be curious to see if he can get 100 broken promises for each of the 100 days in office.
I have the winter Kalashnikov/SKS match results up over at our little informal gun blog rifle league. I shot the smallbore match, but I’ll be damned if I can find my target. What a shame too, because I got a perfect 100, and beat you all. If you believe that, I have a Senate seat in Illinois to sell you.
I’ll try to get the spring match up before the weekend starts. It’ll be a 500 point open sight match. I’ll make the closing date the end of June, just so it doesn’t end on an oddball date. That gives everyone two months to shoot it.  Thanks to everyone who took the time, and braved the weather, to shoot the winter match.
Via Grassroots PA, it looks like they are clearing the way for Specter on the Democratic side. State Representative Josh Shapiro is ruling out running now, and so is Allyson Schwartz. Grassroots PA also reports Sestak isn’t rulling out a primary challenge, and Sestak is a big enough asshole to do it. Apparently Torsella is also staying in.
If Specter is too progressive for Pennsylvania Republicans, he’s probably too conservative for a lot of Democratic primary voters. I would be surprised if Specter doesn’t face anyone in the primary, but we’ll see. The Democratic Party seems to be getting behind Specter, so anyone who does run won’t likely have the backing of the party leadership.
There’s a lot of speculation that Specter can’t really be trusted on the gun issue, because of his betrayal of the Republican Party and of conservatism. It’s certainly a possibility he’ll abandon his positions on guns, but I don’t think it’s likely. One mistake folks should not make when it comes to politicians, is believing they have any loyalty to anything beyond keeping their seats.
From that point of view, Specter’s move is perfectly rational. Polling is making it abundantly clear he can’t survive politically in Pennsylvania as a Republican. He could have waited to see whether that changed, but switching parties late in the game wouldn’t give him any time to build support among Democrats, and to raise money through those circles. When viewed through the lens of “What do I need to do to stay in office,” switching parties was really the only choice, and now is probably the right time.
The question for Specter is whether he views his record on guns as an asset, or a liability. If Specter faces a serious primary challenger from the left, he might view it as a liability. If I were Specter, I would look at it this way: his NRA endorsement is the one asset that he can take with him across the aisle.
But wait? Republicans will never vote for him whether he carries an NRA endorsement or not! True, but Pennsylvania is not generally a red state. It’s a blue state, generally pro-gun, and it’s worthwhile noting that Specter has never been a conservative and has always had a lot of support among Democrats, and many of those Democrats appreciate his stance on the Second Amendment. Pennsylvania has a lot of A rated pro-gun Democrats. The last thing Arlen Specter will want is to tempt those Democratic voters to cross the aisle and vote for his opponent.
If I had to put money on it, I’d bet Specter stays good on guns. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong if he doesn’t, but this also isn’t New York. Specter’s party switch is a cold political calculation aimed at keeping his seat, and in that case, the same calculation should also make him want to keep his endorsement.
We have the video from the interview with Cam last night. I am still speechless. A high school teacher who doesn’t realize that federal law applies to the whole country, including New York. A high school teacher who took what New Yorkers Against Gun Violence said about the law at face value, and who pretty clearly hasn’t researched the topic at all. This is what’s teaching the next generation? God help us.
Click below to see the video, it is in three parts:
Bitter asks in the previous post about whether Specter will want to keep his A-rating from the NRA. Specter is politically weak, and NRA is a good ally to have in your corner in Pennsylvania, even if your a Democrat. I don’t think he can afford to piss off the NRA right now. But it’s actually a bit of an issue for Bitter and I if he keeps his endorsement.
The issue is, we’ve yet to have an endorsed Democrat running for any office. This makes it a lot easier for us to work through the GOP, instead of the individual campaigns, in order to provide support for our endorsed candidates. When we had ourselves and our volunteers manning phone banks this past election, it was through the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania. The calls were going out to benefit all the federal candidates in our district, all of whom happened to be endorsed, and all of whom were Republicans. We didn’t have to choose between who we lent our time to. We could shill for all them at the same time working through the GOP.
If in 2010, Specter wins the NRA endorsement as a Democrat, we’ll have to go back to working through the individual campaigns at the federal level. As much as I hate Arlen Specter on several other issues, and will loathe having to volunteer for him, it’s my commitment in my role as a volunteer to help NRA deliver the votes to their endorsed candidates. I take that seriously, because when endorsed candidates lose, it feeds the perception, currently being molded by our illustrious Governor, that NRA endorsements don’t help you in Pennsylvania. So as much as I hate Arlen Specter as a citizen, as an NRA election volunteer, I’ll help him out if he wins the endorsement.
It’s times like this I wish I had some pro-gun Dems who wanted to help out candidates. That way I wouldn’t have to get my hands dirty with Arlen. If he wins the Democratic primary, I do hope I can recruit some pro-gun Dems who want to help him out. I want Specter to stay true to his current A-rating, because it would better to have two candidates fighting over the gun vote than not. But if Specter goes down in the Dem primary, I can’t say I’ll be all that disappointed. I’d like to be able to throw my support fully behind Pat Toomey.
As much as the thought of having to help out Specter in 2010 bothers me, you don’t win friends in politics by throwing them off the boat at the first sign of rough seas. In politics, you don’t always get good choices. It’s not a game for people who prefer things to be black and white, and the choices to be easy.
I think it’s time for a poll.
[poll id=”11″]
Mayor Mike Bloomberg tells people that if we just take away the guns, we will get rid of the violence. Unfortunately, New York criminals are embracing their entrepreneurial spirit.
In 2008, even as gun killings fell, the number of killings committed with knives or other “cutting instruments†rose 50 percent in New York City, the Police Department said: to 125 from 83.
The news gets worse for the law abiding because fatal stabbings rose faster than gun deaths fell. Once again, we prove that criminals will find ways to attack the innocent regardless of the gun laws.
As you read deeper into the article, the NYPD spokesperson appears to lament the easy availability of knives and lack of restrictions in getting them. Fortunately for taxpayers, the community activists who arrange gun “buy backs” acknowledge that there isn’t enough money in the coffers for them to conduct knife “buy backs.” It might be time to join Knife Rights if you live in New York.
I found a great example of a well-written letter to the editor. It’s sharp, witty, plays off a kernel of truth with just a little exaggeration (but not too much!), and gets people thinking about the issue.
Unfortunately, it was submitted by an anti-gun activist.
That doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it. If there are any readers in south Florida, a well-written response would likely get published.
Arlen Specter has been spending quite a bit of time in Harrisburg lately. He was at the state capitol yesterday and was asked about the chances of a federal AWB.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_R8tsN_qDw[/youtube]
UPDATE: Link fixed.
We talked earlier about a public school teacher in New York who’s taking his kids to Albany to protest gun rights.  I just got this tip from Cam Edwards of NRA News:
Saw your link to the story about that history teacher and his lobbying/field trip to Albany later this week. Wanted to let you know that we did about a 30 minute interview with Mr. Espinoza this afternoon and will be playing it at 11 p.m. tonight.
This ought to be good. Be sure to tune in, either on the web site, or on Sirius Patriot 144.