Year: 2009

Rallying Against Rendell

I’m in the car headed to the rally this morning in Harrisburg.  Obviously not the one driving.  I can blog at the same time as doing many other things, but driving is not among them.  Yesterday I noticed a post by a blog I’ve highlighted here previously.  Capitol Ideas is a well done blog, but that’s not to say that I agree with the author on everything.  One of them is might possibly be gun rights.  See, the thing is, Wayne was right in everything he said.  Most folks don’t realize that these so-called assault weapons are actually less powerful than grandpa’s deer rifle, and almost certainly less lethal than the 12 gauge shotgun that you actually will find in a duck blind.

But it seems controlling guns isn’t enough for some folks, especially politicians in Harrisuburg:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Tom Caltagirone, D-Berks, said recent events highlight the need for a fix in the law since the protective suits are being used more and more often by criminals.

“What purpose does body armor serve outside of law enforcement? There may be a bill,” Caltigirone said.

But a spokeswoman for the NRA argued that the vests serve a legitimate purpose, with everyone from your local pizza delivery-guy to schoolkids (???) are sporting Kevlar. “Do we take that away from them, or do we have government do its job?” spokeswoman Kim Stolfer asked.

Kim isn’t a spokesman for the NRA, and I’m not sure there are really too many school kids sporting kevlar these days, but there are plenty of professional jobs where it’s a good idea.  I wouldn’t be a bartender in a rough bar without wearing ballistic protection.  Definitely wouldn’t be a bouncer, security guard, or even pizza delivery guy, as Kim mentions.  There are plenty of reasons that ordinary citizens might decide to wear a little ballistic protection.

But aside from that argument, I think there’s a good case to be made that armor falls under the term “arms” and thus possession by the law abiding is constitutionally protected.  They certainly qualify as being in “common use” since they are worn by people in dangerous professions, and one can hardly consider body armor particularly dangerous.

Plus, and maybe I’m crazy here, I just have a problem with the government saying “I’m sorry, but we have to be sure we can properly shoot you, should it ever become necessary.”  That doesn’t sit well with me.  In some ways, I feel like that’s worse than taking my guns away.  It would be like declawing a cat, vs cutting a foot off so he can’t run so fast.

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Rally in Harrisburg Tomorrow

Bitter and I will be attending the rally in Harrisburg tomorrow, which begins on the capitol rotunda at 10:00, and we’re planning to be there between 9 and 9:30.  That means leaving Bucks County at the butt crack of dawn.

Just got back from the indoor air pistol silhouette match.  Shot my class both times.  25 and 28, out of 40.  I won’t complain.  Bitter’s slow cooker pulled pork and my beans went over well.  Actually, she made the beans too, but it was my recipe.  Work was busy as hell clearing my plate so I can take tomorrow off.  I’m a bit exhausted, actually, and things won’t slow down, really, until the weekend.  Even then, I might go to the Langhorne Practical Match on Saturday, and Sunday is CMP at my club.  That means firing up the reloading press.  A precision component to the Langhorne match probably means shooting at 200 yards.  I’d prefer my own load for that.

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9th Circuit Incorporates Second Amendment!

In the Nordyke case, linked here.   More commentary to follow.  Nordyke was the case where county officials kicked a gun show off of county property.  Nordyke argues that violates Second Amendment rights.

UPDATE: An excerpt:

The County does little to refute this powerful evidence that the right to bear arms is deeply rooted in the history and tradition of the Republic, a right Americans considered fundamen- tal at the Founding and thereafter. The County instead argues that the states, in the exercise of their police power, are the instrumentalities of the right of self-defense at the heart of the Second Amendment. This argument merely rephrases the col- lective rights argument the Supreme Court rejected in Heller. Indeed, one need only consider other constitutional rights to see the poverty of this contention. State police power also covers, for instance, some of the conduct the First Amendment protects, but that does not deny individuals the right to assert First Amendment rights against the states.

[…]

We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty.” Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited.  We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.

So they took the due process clause route, rather than the privileges and immunities clause route.  But the ruling is a great victory for our side regardless.

UPDATE: I should note this ruling only applies to those states in the 9th Circuit Court.  Those states are Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona.  If you live in those states, congratulations, the Second Amendment now applies to your states and local governments (that means you, California).  The County of Alameda will be able to appeal, naturally, first to the entire 9th Circuit, en banc, and then to the Supreme Court of the United States.

UPDATE: Dave Hardy has more.  It looks like the ban on gun shows on county property is being upheld as reasonable under the Second Amendment, even though we won on incorporation.  This means that Alameda technically won the case, and the decision can only be appealed by the plantiffs.  This means the incorporation decision will likely stand in the 9th circuit.

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Schumer, Gillibrand Want Records

Oh how wrong I turned out to be about Kirsten Gillibrand.  The New York Daily News even notes the flip flopping.  Gillibrand and Schumer want to keep the NICS records for ninety days again, much like they were under Clinton.  This goes to show there are no principles in politics, only interests.  The anti-gun folks downstate managed to threaten her enough to make her think changing positions was the politically smart move.  She very well might be correct in that.  When you boil it down, politicians care about keeping their seats.  Your influence over them comes down to hard political calulations, and if Second Amendment advocates don’t have anything to offer, under the bus they will go.

So Republicans in New York State: you know what to do.  I’d take even Giuliani over this.  At least I know the devil I’m getting with him.  With Gillibrand, it seems we’ll have to keep watching behind us for the knife.

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In the Tank

I love this headline: “Obama aims to cut wasteful spending,” from the LA Times.  What is their shining example of Obama’s self-evidence fiscal responsibility?

The president singled out a move by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to end consulting contracts to create seals and logos that he said had cost the department $3 million since 2003.

Three million?  Wow.  I am in awe of that number.  With a budget deficit projected at 2 trillion dollars for this year, surely the Department of Homeland security having to go without seals will save our children from this massive, crushing debt.

Do we need any more evidence the media is in the tank?  Two trillion dollars.  Think about that number.  It’s 1000 million to get to a billion, and a 1000 billion to get to a trillion.  And we’re not doing that once, but twice.  That’s 2 million times a million dollars.  Nitpicking little items here and there can add up to real money eventually, but it won’t be a drop in the bucket when all is said and done.

I now yearn for the days of the fiscally restrained Bush Administration!

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Interference Bloomberg Style

This New York Times piece shines quite a stunning flashlight at Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-gun operation:

He was arrested in 2005 and accused of using his wife and others as “straw buyers” to acquire more than two dozen sawed-off shotguns, semiautomatic pistols and rifles in Virginia, most of their serial numbers obliterated, and selling them for thousands of dollars in New York City. He faced up to five years in prison if convicted.

What follows is outrageous.  Federal prosecutors wanted to throw the book at this guy.  Bloomberg moved in and cut a deal, and got him off with probation, saying “his cooperation was ‘extraordinary’ and ‘really helpful to the city.'”

So you have a guy the feds managed to catch, who was unambiguously buying guns through a straw purchaser in Virginia, filing the numbers off the gun, and trafficking them illegally up to New York City, and selling them on the streets.  And Bloomberg lets him off with a slap on the wrist?  Why?

Mr. Winfield was no doubt helped by the timing of his case, which occurred as the city was looking for help in two lawsuits it filed in 2006 against more than two dozen gun dealers in Virginia and four other states.

Yep.  Now we know why ATF was pissed at Bloomberg when it happened.  They had an honest to God criminal gun trafficker, and Bloomberg got him off pretty much scott free so he could grandstand in public, crap all over ther rights of businessmen with no connection to his state, and all the while pandering to a fawning media who will congratulate him on doing so much to help rid New Yorkers of the scourge of “illegal guns.”

Well, it looks like the gig is up now.  It’s never been about controlling crime.  It’s about controlling people.  Anyone who says that’s nonsense needs to look no further than Michael Bloomberg.

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Adjusting to a Different Culture

Rachel Lucas seems to be trying to make her way in her new home across the pond, and talks about her impressions in regards to a story circulating of two teenage yobs who attacked a bus driver with knives:

But I don’t know now. I realize I’ve been here less than four weeks but already I’m starting to get a different vibe about this sort of event, and I’m not sure how to articulate it, but it’s something along the lines of: these people are just too nice.

The culture is different. There are a lot of ways to describe it, none of which really nail it for me, but it is different. And until you get to the moment where they’re not doing anything to help during an attack, it’s pretty damn AWESOMELY different. I hesitate to even say that because I know some of my fellow Americans will take offense or take it the wrong way, but the thing is, like I keep saying, the people are are exceedingly polite and I like it a whole lot.

Read the whole thing.  My total experience of the UK was a few days in London, so I can’t claim to be an expert.  But it strikes me as a good example of approaching a foreign culture with an open mind, and a willingness to admit that things aren’t always as simple or as straightforward as we assume them to be.

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Heed Warnings of More Experienced Shooters

This morning and afternoon were the outdoor NRA Air Silhouette matches at our club.  One match in the morning, and one in the afternoon.  Last Saturday, I was at the club looking at some resettable silhouette animals we were considering buying, and adjusted my sights higher.  Rowland, one of our best shooters, advised me, “Better not set those sights in this cold.  When we get out shooting in warmer weather they’ll be off.”   I knew he was right, but readjusted anyway.  I wanted to see if I could land hits on chickens at the ram distance.  With a CO2 gun like mine, the pressure is a function of temperature, so below a certain degree (about 60 F), your point of impact starts dropping, and becomes a bit erratic.  Last Saturday it was 45 degrees, this Saturday it was 65 degrees, with a bit of a head wind.

Come this morning, I went through my first bank of chickens without a hit.  I can have off days, but missing 5 chickens in a row?   Crank the settings back down.  Next bank of chickens.  Miss 5 more.  Blow through 5 pigs without a hit, trying to figure out where I am, crank up, crank down.  Listen for the “tink” of hitting the rail telling me I’m getting close.  Blow through 4 more.  Finally!  I hit one.  I’m in the ball park.  I check on paper a few times on the even relay.  Could be better, but no more mucking around for this match.  Take down 12 turkeys and rams.  Oh well, at least an A score, not a B.

We broke for lunch and I went back to the chickens and got them right where I like them: hold on the leg.  Then back to rams to see where I was on them.  Hold on the back.  Great.  Pigs will be just about where chickens are, and turkeys will be pretty much dead on body hold.  Second match I shot a 33, which is a master score, and the highest score I’ve ever shot with air pistol open sights.  I won 5 dollars for having the highest open sight pistol score.  I won’t complain!

I am currently AAA for outdoor air pistol open sights, but now have one leg up into master.  If I shoot two more master scores, I will be bumped up to master.  It’s always good to have goals, but in trying to achieve them, listen to those who are more experienced.  I could possibly have been a match winner if I hadn’t mucked around with my sites.  We have several master shooters, so those opportunities don’t come around often.  Rowland can typically figure out in a few animals where his sight settings are.  I do not yet have that talent.  For me, I think the best recipe is not to change my settings once I have them, and to check before the match starts.  The last thing you want to be doing is trying to find your sight settings while you lose points in a match!

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Quote of the Day

Dr. Helen says:

I remember a while back, I read in a women’s magazine about political activists who were out “saving the world.” What struck me was something one of the activist’s said: “I found out that me and 25 friends could make a difference in changing politics.” I never forgot that. We often think it takes a big majority of people or a huge group to make a change. I think that’s wrong. Most people don’t care about politics and the truth is you and 25 friends can make a difference.

I know it sounds odd, but it’s true.  In my experience as a “community organizer,” if I had 25 dedicated people in this Congressional District as my volunteers, this would be a far more pro-gun county than it is.  With 25 dedicated people, I’d have something very real and valuable to offer state and local politicians, and even Congressional and National races.  In grassroots political activity, volunteers are very hard to find.  Dedicated volunteers are pure gold.

The politicians know this too.  The biggest thing you can give them (and by converse take away), more than money or your individual vote, is your time.  This is especially true for your state and local level politicians, who depend more on grassroots activity than a federal Congressman or Senator who has money to buy media ads.  But even federal politicians still need volunteers.

With 25 dedicated people, I could easily change the political calculation on guns in this county.  I can say that without a doubt.  That’s why I plead so often for people to volunteer their time.  The things that keep people from volunteering are understandable, namely a lack of time, and because no one really likes politicians all that much.  I don’t really like them either.  But, unfortunately, much like cattle, if you don’t keep them well corralled and under control, they’ll stampede and ruin everything.

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