The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Rendell says he’s going to try, but it’ll be difficult.
The governor is also pushing for the re-enactment of a federal assault weapons ban. He says he doesn’t expect the president to put it on the table now, but hopes it can be raised after health care is addressed.
I was debating putting a feature on this blog that counts down the days, minutes, and seconds until the end of Ed Rendell’s governorship. I think I’m going to have to do that when the time closes in.
Tam seems to have collected herself a troll, and a particularly nasty one at that, who appears to be this blogger showing here. My issues with the threeper movement are much less based in what they believe than you might think. If a bunch of guys want to get together and play Army of Defending the Republic, it’s no skin off my back. It’s a free country. But could we please do it without being flaming dickheads? Thank you.
I know there those out there of threeper persuasion, who are honorable, respectable folks, so I don’t mean paint too broadly with this brush, but you guys have some angry, nasty people on your side of the fence, and people will judge you by the company you keep.
From an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette talking about Obama and Rendell driving gun sales up:
“The president believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms,” an official said in an e-mailed statement. “His administration is committed to protecting the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport and use guns while stopping firearms traffickers and keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and others prohibited from owning them.”
But it’s safe to say that many gun owners don’t trust the president.
The Lancaster media covered the Ted Nugent “Live Free” rally, and here’s a complete accounting of their coverage of Bryan Miller’s protest:
A small group held a silent protest outside of the rally. They said they are not against gun rights, but that Nugent sends a violent message.
Not against gun rights? This is not the Bryan Miller I knew. From LancasterOnline:
While he spoke, 16 people protested across the road from the club entrance.
That’s it? The people who were at the pro-gun side of things had to pay 150 dollars a head to be there. And we still outnumbered them by an order of magnitude. So that’s going to be it? Miller gets his name in one article in the Lancaster media market? I think I could generate more than 16 people to protest a gun control rally, and without using the blog.  How the mighty have fallen.
Jersey City passed a gun rationing ordinance, and ANJRPC fought it in court and won. It looks like the case is going before the New Jersey Supreme Court now.  As we detailed a few months ago, ACORN is heavily involved in this case. The New Jersey court system has not always been friendly to gun issues. The infamous case of New Jersey v. Pelleteri is instructive. Pelleteri was charged with being in possession of a Marlin Model 60, with a 17 round tube fed magazine, which is defined as an “assault firearm” under New Jersey law. His defense tried to argue that he was unaware the Marlin fell under New Jersey’s definition, and thus he did not knowingly possess an “assault firearm.”  The court concluded:
When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril. In short, we view the statute as a regulatory measure in the interests of the public safety, premised on the thesis that one would hardly be surprised to learn that possession of such a highly dangerous offensive weapon is proscribed absent the requisite license.
That’s a .22LR plinking gun they are speaking of here, not an AK-47. Oh, and the license they speak of? They won’t issue it to you. They are like carry licenses in New Jersey, in that they exist in theory, but not in practice.
I think about traveling to New Jersey to shoot sometimes, and then I remember all the case law I’ve read, and think better of it. Sometimes it’s better, even if a bit riskier, to be ignorant.
UPDATE: This article about the oral arguments make it sound as though Jersey City made the argument that if the Court would allow them to break the state’s preemption laws, then it would be okay because other cities would follow in their tracks.
Jardim pushed for the court to keep the ordinance so that other towns and states might create similar laws.
“We hope that towns adopt it. We hope that the state adopts it. We hope that Pennsylvania adopts it. We hope that there’s a federal law for it,” said Jardim.
Why bother with the readin’, ‘righin’, and ‘rithmetic when you can teach them that firearms are evil:
About 40 students in Increase the Peace, a club led by Esposito, will head to Albany next week to lobby for legislation that will hold the gun industry more accountable and keep drunken drivers off the road.
“We’re going to have fun on this field trip, but we’re also trying to save lives,†Esposito told students at an after-school meeting of the club this week. “There’s a good chance these bills will be passed. If they’re passed, you guys are a part of it.â€
If I were a parent, I’d be having a cow right about now, and would be taking it up with the school board. What do you think classmates would say about a student who, in protest, chose to stay behind, at school, rather than get a day off to go to Albany?
If you’re a reader, and you live in this school district, it’s time to raise hell. It’s only when we’re silent that we lose.
In the last three months of 2008, that’s right, three months, Americans bought enough guns to outfit the Chinese and Indian armies, combined.
This is going to make gun restrictions a lot more politically hazardous for the new administration.
Tam, coming off her great analysis of the ammunition shortage, follows up with a taxonomy of gun nuts. I’m mostly a “Gamer” and a little bit of “Trainer” and “Collector”. Probably a bit more collector than trainer.
I have guns I don’t have ammunition for, so those are pretty much pure collector pieces. But that’s pretty much just my taste, I have no discipline in my collecting. For instance, I have a Russian capture Mauser from 1938, with the German markings ground off, from the J.P. Sauer and Sohn factory in Suhl. Money wise, it will never fetch a fair prize, but it shoots well enough. I like having it. It’s a piece of history. Its owner was likely captured or killed by the Russians. Either way, it’s not likely that its owner ever set eyes on the Fatherland again.
I’m sitting here in my house, in Pennsylvania, in late April, and am sweltering. Global warming is killing us all! The high today topped at 93. Since I’ve lost a few trees, I’m finding my house not as well insulated as I originally thought. Upstairs was getting close to the outside temperature, where my house used to stay pretty cool.  That’s disappointing.
It’s way too early to start thinking about getting the AC units in the windows (I don’t have central air, but my house is small enough that a few window units accomplish the same thing), but it feels like friggin July. In fact, even July isn’t usually this hot. I guess it’s good acclimation for Phoenix, assuming we’re not all dropping dead of Mexican Swine Flu by then.
Shot the CMP match at the club this morning. I’m disappointed to have scored lower than my last score of 395/500. I dropped to 
368/500. Part of the problem was, I was confused by range instructions, and ended up shooting the wrong target. I thought we had 15 minutes of shooting to get sighted in, but I was supposed to put on a few sighters and put 10 in the actual target. I put ten into the actual sighter target. But hey, at least I didn’t shoot someone else’s target. Fortunately, Burt, who runs these matches, let me score the sighter target, because he would have been correct for me to take a big fat zero for that part. Score was still pretty awful, because I wasn’t on at first. I’ve been wondering about whether the sling pulls my shots off. I don’t have an AR-15 with a free float barrel.
When I sling up, my shots pull left and high, it seems. I suppose I need to work on consistency with the sling in that case. Can any of my readers who are experienced high power shooters comment on sling use on an AR without a free floating barrel? The next problem have is constructing the sitting position. Doing the rapid fire string sitting, I shot a fan pattern from the 10 ring down and right toward the 5 ring. I have to get to the range and find a sitting position that works for me.
The only problem with that is how tight supplies are on ammo right now. I might have to switch to shooting the FAL soon, because I’m running out of small rifle primers, and with primers in such short supply, I don’t know how long it will take to get more.
I have plenty of large rifle primers to last me a while. I don’t know how much more of this hope and change I can handle. I’m pretty good on Varget for now, but loading up heavier .308 loads could change that real fast. I doubt Obama pushing that CIFTA treaty, which would ban reloading, is going to help things any either. People are going to stockpile. This is one nice thing about shooting air guns — it’s hard to regulate the components. No problem finding pellets and CO2.