2009 – Page 217 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Import/Export of Arms Concerns

There are rumblings out of Canada that the first attempts at a low-key administrative attack on guns is beginning.Â Jim Sheperd reports in this morning’s Shooting Wire:

A report making the rounds in Canada that says officials have it on “good authority” that our State Department may be on the verge of cutting off all imports of certain calibers of ammunition.

Ammos listed for this rumored ban include the .50BMG, 7.62x39mm Soviet, 7.62x51mm NATO, .308 Winchester, 5.56 NATO and .223 Remington. Additionally, we’re hearing that an expansion of this proposed ban might be broadened to include the 6.8mm SPC, 9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP- among others.

In other words, State Department officials may be floating a trial balloon to see if there are howls of protest, or whimpers of compliance. …

Additionally, Canadian officials tell me they are hearing rumblings of blanket export bans on certain firearms to Canada and the attachment of DSP-83 End Use Certificates (with their $250 Export Fee) attached to all other types of American firearms.

I would question whether there is the authority to regulate importation/exportation of ammunition and assess fees on firearm exports, but I haven’t read all the relevant federal statutes and regulations.

AR-15 .22LR Upper Bleg

So with spring coming, our club hosts CMP matches.Â Any rifle capable of rapid fire will do.Â I plan to get out with the AR-15 and shoot a few this year, and I think I’ll keep shooting the Langhorne Rod and Gun practical matches, since they are on the last Saturday, and don’t conflict with much else.

I’ve found Thursday indoor silhouette at the club keeps me getting on the range at least once a week, but typically I bring Bitter’s CZ 452, or my Kimber Government Model 82.Â I’m thinking it might be of good benefit to be able to practice offhand shooting with an AR-15 on Thursday nights at indoor silhouette, but this would mean I’d need a .22LR upper for the AR, and the special magazines for that caliber.Â I know they make such things, but I’m curious if anyone among my readers has any experience with them, and can tell me which manufacturers of .22LR uppers and magazines for the AR-15 are making quality products.

What a Craptacular Day

Well, any day when one of your trees falls on your neighbor’s house has got to be pretty bad.Â Sorry for the lack of posts today, as I was in meetings all day, while simultaneously trying to give Bitter instructions on what to do about the tree.

Seems that a tree falling in a wind storm is considered an Act of God, and the only way you’re liable for it is if someone can prove negligence, like the tree was clearly troubled, and you refused to do anything about it.Â Â I had my trees trimmed just last year, because I was concerned about dumping branches on my neighbors.

So because it’s an Act of God, my neighbors are actually responsible for filing their own claim with their homeowners for damage to their house.Â Fortunately, there was very little damage to their house.Â I think they will have to replace a few roof shingles, and maybe some of the capping on the garage.Â The removal of the tree is going to be on me, and I’m going to tend to the damage to their fence which divides our property.

I’ll be honest though, I feel horrible that one of my trees fell on their house.Â No guilt a good stiff drink can’t deal with though.Â Tonight is a bourbon night, maybe two.Â Indoor Silhouette was earlier tonight.Â Did pretty well on rifle: a 39.Â But tonight was special.Â For Valentine’s Day, we taped up some heart shape lollipops to shoot at.Â If you hit a lollipop, it was worth 5 animals, but you had to sacrifice an animal for every attempt at the lolly.Â I hit one, so it boosted my score, but I probably would have had a 36 without it, since I was hitting the animals pretty well compared to usual.Â Shooting with pistol was not as good.Â A few months ago, 23 would have been good, but I’ve been getting into the high 20s more often lately, so 23 is back down to where I was at the beginning of the season.Â I’m still surprised by how easy it is to psychologically defeat yourself.Â Started out with hitting 8 pigs.Â Keep that up, it’s a 32, which is decent for me.Â Bombed turkeys, big time, only 3.Â Got 6 of each of the remaining two animals.Â If you worry about missing, it seems you’ll miss.Â I do better when I’m just enjoying being on the range.Â I do worse when I worry about how I’m doing.

Busy

I’m in meetings most of today, and I spent last night and this morning preparing for them.Â I would ask Bitter to fill in for me with some content we found yesterday and this morning, but she’s busy dealing with the tree that the wind from last night’s storm brought down on to our neighbor’s garage.

Look for more later.

UPDATE from Bitter: Yeah, this is getting fun.Â The wind keeps whipping up to some pretty high speeds, so I’m not confident that things won’t get worse.Â Which kinda sucks since right now, the damage looks to be minimal (a fence is leaning).

Pics from my phone since it seems my camera is in Sebastian’s laptop bag which is with him at work.Â Hopefully he’s had time to see them by now.

Some of the photos are taken through the screen and windows since it’s not exactly safe to go out there.Â The tree split and one half went on to the neighbor’s garage about 10 minutes after I called the tree guy to come get it out.Â We’re still trying to figure out what to do.

The Influence Hierarchy

Countertop was kind enough to give us a rank ordered list of types of people important to politicians:

Based on my considerable experience in this area, hereâ€™s how – generally speaking – a candidate will prioritize the interests of stakeholders – all in the name of winning elections and diminishing the effort they need to undertake to win.

Ability to organize and deliver large numbers of constituents

Ability to organize large numbers of campaign volunteers

Ability to raise money from large numbers of donors

Constituent who donated money and worked on campaign

Constituent who donated money

Constituent who worked on campaign

Non-constituent who worked on campaign

Non-constituent who donated money

Constituent who is known to member and is a member of same party

Constituent who is member of same party

Constituent who actually votes (and voted for member)

Constituent who actually votes

Constituent

As you can see, a little effort and organization on our side can have a huge impact on Gillibrand.

If even 1/10th of the gun owners in New York donated 25 dollars, and called to tell her to vote against a new gun control law, she’d be hard pressed not to listen.Â That would be serious money she’d be putting at risk by going against you, and her natural inclination as a politician seems to be pro-gun.

There are limits to this, of course, you’re not going to turn Chuck Schumer pro-gun no matter how much you donate, because he’s a true believer, and he can make up that money elsewhere.Â But Kirsten Gillibrand has a record, and it’s good.Â Those pooh poohing her because she’s not good enough, or because she frames gun rights in the language of hunting are forgetting that a) this is New York we’re talking about, and she has to win a Dem primary in two years and b) it’s sometimes necessary to take a gamble on someone new and promising in order to build influence early.Â If you support her, either through donations, organizing or volunteering, and she screws you over, you can always withdraw that support, and make sure she knows why.Â This is a prime opportunity for gun owners, but will enough capitalize on it in a smart way?

Obama Seems to Forget Quickly

It has apparently been lost on President Obama that Nevada may have gone blue for him, but it is not consistently a blue state.Â Perhaps he forgot that fact right before he tried to trash the state’s tourism industry.

Sin City’s mayor wants President Barack Obama to apologize for saying companies shouldn’t visit Las Vegas on the taxpayer’s dime.

Oscar Goodman spoke after a regular scheduled meeting with tourism officials where he expressed concern that federal lawmakers might be discouraging travel to the city.

Don’t say that offhand remarks can’t have consequences:

Late Monday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it had moved a three-day conference from the Las Vegas Strip to San Francisco amid what the bank called a broad review of its activities. Goldman Sachs has accepted $10 billion in federal bailout funds.

Vegas is one of the cheapest cities that companies could travel to when they need to cut event costs.Â Instead, now choosing meeting cities is a matter of politics instead of smart money management.Â (Consider where Goldman Sachs moved their meeting to after the remarks.)

What I’ve Been Doing in My Spare Time

The local rifle and pistol club that I belong to was looking for some new ideas for their web site.Â Since I have a bit of experience with operating web sites, I volunteered to have a stab at it.Â Tonight, this is what I’ll be presenting to our board.Â Hopefully they’ll like it.Â It’s served off WordPress, same as this blog.

More rifle and pistol clubs need a healthy web presence.Â There’s plenty of crap out there about people misusing guns, so it’s worthwhile to have live examples of people having fun and using them responsibly.Â I’m hoping WordPress is going to be easier for match directors and club leaders to update, so our web site will give the impression of an active, fun shooting club.

NRA Board Nominations

Weâ€™ve already covered the composition of the NRA Board of Directors and how members are elected to the board. One of the next frequently misunderstood topics Iâ€™ve observed on the internet is how people get on the ballot in the first place.

There are two types of nominations you will see listed in your NRA magazine if you are a voting member. One is by the Nominating Committee, and the other is by Petition. Some director candidates choose to do both to demonstrate grassroots support, even if they have the support of other board members through the Nominating Committee.

First, Iâ€™ll address those nominated by petition. Candidates for the board may submit the names and personal information of 250 voting-eligible NRA members to be placed on the ballot. No more than five petition candidates from a single state may be on the ballot in the same year. If more than five submit their petitions, the five with the most valid signatures will be included on the ballot.

Next, we have the Nominating Committee candidates. Each year, the full board votes for a smaller committee made up of nine board members to process through nominations and select candidates they feel would best represent members on the board. For obvious reasons, this process has – at times – been controversial when some did not like the slate of endorsed candidates.

Historically speaking, those candidates endorsed by the Nominating Committee are typically the top vote getters. The candidates themselves usually note their support by the Committee in their official bios to show that they have the support of their fellow board members. In addition, the Committee will publish a list of their endorsed nominees in the same issue as the ballot. Regardless, being endorsed by the Committee is by no means a promise of being winning a seat on the board. In most years, the Committee will endorse more than 25 candidates â€“ more than the number who could possibly win. Itâ€™s not unusual to see 30 or more endorsed candidates.

Case Against Lead Ammunition Building

We’re seeing more and more stories like this.Â This one from Wisconsin pointing out birds are dying of lead poisoning, and it’s the fault of ammunition from hunting and lead sinkers.Â Here are some questions I ask when I see these studies:

But, he said, “I think the lead bullets in venison reopened the door again. I do believe that over the past couple of years that a lot of things have changed.”

What studies have shown that lead fragments in venison contribute to lead poisoning in humans?Â Humans have been consuming animals killed by lead shot and lead bullets (musket bullets have a lot more lead in them, in fact) for centuries.Â Why is it only now that it’s a problem?

The DNR study also found lead fishing tackle in all loons that died of lead poisoning.

What’s the overall incidence of lead fishing tackle in loons?Â Have they found loons that had lead fishing tackle in their gizzards that did not have lead poisoning?

Elemental lead is actually not that remarkably toxic.Â Cases have been reported of human ingestion of lead shot with little ill effect.Â Most cases of human lead poisoning come from people (mostly kids) consuming oxides of lead found in chips from leaded paints.Â Hunting groups need to fund their own studies that start asking the right question.Â Right now, the environmentalist are driving the debate, and for them, no amount of lead in the environment is acceptable.

Clarification on Gillibrand

I should have made it clearer that I wasn’t taking the position that Kirsten Gillibrand was changing her position on guns in my post yesterday, and actually meant to use a question mark in the post title.Â I agree with both Bitter and Uncle about what the Times is trying to do here, and that’s she’s given little indication she’s changing her position.

What she is doing is trying to find some cover on the issue as a pro-gun candidate in a very anti-gun media market (Downstate New York).Â Because of the intense media pressure, and pressure from within her own party, to change her position, I think it would be a bit bold to count her as a reliable pro-gun vote, largely because I don’t like how the politics work out for her if she continues to vote with the NRA.

This is why originally Bitter was an advocate of donating to her campaign.Â She has a record on the issue, and while it’s not long, it’s good. Gun owners will wield more influence over her during a critical vote if they are on board already.Â If they are not, her fellow Democrats are going to tell her “Those cousin-humpers upstate will never vote for a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Democrat, so you can forget about them and vote the way we expect you to,” and she will have nothing to fight back with.

Politicians pay considerably more attention to campaign donors than they do ordinary constituents, and the threat she could use that kind of support might be enough to keep her with us.Â My fear, however, is that New York gun owners will take a wait and see approach in regards to Gillibrand, which I think is incorrect.Â The time to influence and help her is now, because she’s politically at her weakest.Â If she keeps voting with us, and wins in 2010, it’s likely she’ll stay with us.Â The New York Times is doing their level best to take advantage of Gillibrand’s weakness, and tie her hands on the gun issue.Â What are gun owners willing to do for her?