2009 – Page 32 – Shall Not Be Questioned

How Dems Can Avoid Disaster in 2010

Over at Capitol Ideas, there’s also some good advice for Republicans:

Find Candidates That Fit Their Constituencies And Districts. If he were advising Democrats, Republican consultantÂ Ray Zaborney of Harrisburg said he’d tell them to “find people who are true to where your party is, but make sure you modernize your message.”

Fresh off a trip to Virginia, where he advised state Republicans,Â ZaborneyÂ pointed to GOP gubernatorial candidateÂ Robert McDonnell, who he says beat DemocratÂ Creigh Deeds last week by appealing both to moderates and the party’s conservative base.
“Bob McDonnell is as conservative as they come, but he talked about issues people care about,”Â Zaborney said.

He contrasted McDonnell with the example ofÂ Doug Hoffman, theÂ Conservative Party candidate who was defeated by DemocratÂ Bill Owens, handing the Democrats a win in New York’sÂ 23rd Congressional District for the first time in a century.
Unlike the doctrinaireÂ Hoffman, who was backed by national conservatives,McDonnell “stayed true to his principles, but moved past just tax cuts and vouchers for education,”Â Zaborney said.

“The one who wins is the one that consolidates both sides of their party best and, of course, the middle,” he said.

I’ve never believed the common wisdom often heard on conservative talk radio that if only we ran candidates who were conservative enough, we’d be guaranteed victory. It’s certainly a mistake to run left leaning candidates like Scozzafava in a district that could support a right-of-center moderate, but Doug Hoffman probably wasn’t the right man for that district. Understand that he lost in a year when Democratic turnout was pitiful. He might have won the seat for one term, or two, but if he governed too far to the right of his district, he’d be open to an attack from the center. If anyone doesn’t think that’s a possibility, just ask Rick Santorum.

Whether Republicans want to admit it or not, the Democrats have made great gains by running candidates who tailored their message to their districts, and are now using it to push an agenda that is far to the left, even for many of the Democrats they used to get their majority back.Â I fully believe the Democrats will be punished in 2010 for running too far to the left of the country, but it’s hard to argue the strategy hasn’t been effective for promoting a progressive agenda. The GOP has a lot they can learn in the example.

It Won’t Save You

Democrats refusing to vote for Corzine because of his crusade to bring gun rationing to the Garden State. As we’ve been saying for a while, gun control isn’t an issue that can salvage a political career, even in New Jersey. It really is the last refuge of scoundrels.

Hat Tip to Dave Adams

Shooting Illustrated

Shooting Illustrated I am one of those NRA members that, every month, puts his American Rifleman and America’s First Freedom out on the coffee table, and almost never get around to cracking it open and reading it. It’s not that the publication quality is awful, just that it’s mostly stuff I’ve already seen covered in the blogosphere, or seen in NRA’s e-mail alerts. I might read an occasional article on Rifleman about a gun I’m interested in, but I follow all the political stuff online. Ed over at NRA Publications was kind of enough to comp me a copy of Shooting Illustrated, figuring it’d be another NRA magazine with stuff in it I don’t really want to read. It’s actually got some pretty good stuff in it. The cover story is a pretty good article comparing subcompact .380 pistols, which I found to be interesting, comparing the Walther P380, the NAA Guardian .380, the Mini Desert Eagle, Rohrbaugh R380, Kahr P380, Ruger LCP, Kel-Tec P-3AT, and SIG P238. Next up is a review of Hornady’s new Critical Defense ammunition, which shows that it does pretty well in short barreled pistols. Heading up the rear of the magazine is an article on the RPG-7, and its effectiveness in combat. Lots of articles with shooting tips that are going to be familiar to competitive shooters, but are good advice for people who are more casual shooters.

In short, it’s got a lot more to offer gun enthusiasts and casual shooters than the standard membership magazine, and I think would make a good supplement. And no, I’m not saying that because they sent a free copy. For the 10 dollar a year subscription cost, if I thought it sucked, I’d tell you.

Movement on Castle Doctrine in Pennsylvania

Looks like the House Judiciary Committee will be considering the castle doctrine legislation next Thursday, the 19th of November. NRA is asking people to contact the members of the judiciary committee to support the measure. The actual House Bill is HB40. Look over it, it’s a pretty standard type bill. Major provisions:

Eliminates the duty to retreat within one’s home, including attached structures like porches, decks and patios. Exception for people who are using their property to further a criminal activity, so if someone is running a grow operation, and shoots someone breaking in to steal some pot, they can’t claim castle doctrine. Also applies to vehicles, including non-motorized vehicles.
Eliminates the duty to retreat on the streets provided you are in fear of grave bodily injury or harm, and provided you are not engaged in criminal activity. Criminal activity is this instance is narrowly defined as to not include things like spitting on the sidewalk. If you’re a drug dealer, you won’t be able to claim castle doctrine if you end up in a gunfight with a rival.
Clarifies the definition of loaded firearm to include magazines being secured in a separate pouch, rather than specifying a separate container, provided the magazine is secure, and the ammunition covered. This means you only need one range bag, provided it has a place to secure the magazines.
Provides for civil immunity for actions that are ruled self-defense. If the perpetrator sues anyway, it’s a loser pays system, so you can recover attorneys fees. There is no civil liability immunity if you accidentally hit a bystander, so this is not absolute.

To there you have it. Call the reps listed. No doubt there will be a lot of huffing and puffing by politicians, interest groups, and the media about the world will end if this passes. Many of them will never read the bill, or just have an agenda. But I have read it, and will continue to report.

UPDATE: Thanks to Sean for reminding that ACSL will be holding a lobby day on November 18th in support of the Castle Doctrine bill. I didn’t realize they had set a final date, but it looks like they have. Time will be from 9am until sometime in the afternoon. They will meet outside the security checkpoint at the South Entrance to the Capitol, the one with the water fountain outside.

Research

This is what a news article on the Five-Seven would look like if the topic weren’t sensationalized, and the news media took their facts from someone other than the Brady Campaign.

h/t again to Instapundit, who deserves a lot of credit for getting this information out there to a wider, non-gunnie audience.

More PALCB Fun

It seems the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the state’s wine and liquor monopoly, is sending their employees to charm school:

Added bonus,Â Heyl finds in this week’s column that customer complaints have actually increased since theÂ LCB sent its employees to Charm School, going from one complaint in every 324,000 liquor purchases, to one complaint in every 288,000 liquor purchases.
Say what?
Asked for an explanation,Â Joe Conti, the liquor board’s CEO, didn’t really give one.
“Eighty to 100 complaints is really so anecdotal that I don’t know that we’d use those as a barometer” of the [charm school] program’s success, he said.Â Contialso told Heyl that the courtesy training was part of an overall strategy “to provide our patrons with a superlative shopping experience … the (LCB) board felt strongly that we had to do this.”
Fair enough. But if you’re going to spend $173k in public funds, you usually have the right to demand that things get better. Or ask for your money back. If theÂ LCB is serious about running itself as a business, it might want to start acting like one.

Recently a patron at our local LCB store became so irate, he threw a bottle through the window. I wonder if that was registered as a complaint? I grow increasingly tired of having to trek over to New Jersey to get any reasonable wine selection, or buy real top shelf liquor. I can’t believe we’ve been unable to create a constituency for privatizing the LCB in Pennsylvania.

Press Stupidity on Guns

Instapundit points out the press is being silly when it comes to the FN Five-Seven. ThisÂ Wired article actually isn’t too bad, but some interesting tidbits from it:

Gun control group The Brady Campaign says itÂ bought and test-fired a Five-Seven, and that it successfully penetrated a police vest. That said, it doesnâ€™t seem quite accurate to call the Five-Seven a pocket-sized assault rifle. Its barrel would give it a lower muzzle velocity than a PN90; likewise, it strikes me as unlikely that it would give a shooter much more accuracy and effective range than a standard pistol. And plain-vanilla pistol round can be devastating enough: Think of theÂ Virginia Tech shooter, who used a Glock 9mm and Walther .22.

Wired at least seems to know the basics, or did some research before spouting about cop killer guns. The Brady’s once again don’t offer the complete picture. All police armor is not created equal, and I have little doubt the round they used penetrates the lowest level of body armor, which are of the older generation. But so would a hot 9mm round, or a 22 magnum. Also, the round the Brady Campaign tested with is no longer available on the civilian market (or any market, it was discontinued).

ATF shows the ammunition commonly available to civilians does not penetrate typical police body armor.

UPDATE: It has to warm the heart to see a Brady press release over at Opposing Views bringing up the old “magazine” v. “clip” debate in the comments. It’s reminiscent of the old Brady Blog, back in the days before Reasoned Discourse^TM took over.

That Didn’t Take Long

Before Nancy Pelosi even had the votes counted, someone created a Facebook group to dump Patrick Murphy. I signed up. The Democrats seem to think this area is true blue, but only four years ago, 3 out of the 4 congressional districts representing the Philadelphia suburbs were held by the GOP. Murphy ran as a Blue Dog, sells himself as a Blue Dog, but is really an unrepentant leftist. Far too liberal for Bucks County. You’d be hard pressed to get a deep red conservative elected in my district, but I think the GOP could capture the middle with the right message against Murphy.

In 2008, the GOP geared up Tom Manion to run on Iraq as an issue, but by the time the election rolled around everyone cared bout the economy. The GOP needs to hit Murphy on the topics he’s vulnerable. He won’t be able to count on Obama’s coattails in 2010, and Murphy has done plenty of offend our district, if someone will only tell them. I sincerely hope the GOP mounts a serious challenge to Murphy in 2010. This is probably our best chance to unseat him.

Firearms Freedom Acts

Evan Nappen takes a look at the problems with the various Firearms Freedom Acts from a legal point of view. I can understand why the FFA’s are a useful tool for politicians to please an important constituency, and are useful symbolism, but I think time and energy is best spent actually expanding gun rights.

Custom Gun

A very interesting Smith & Wesson 686 over at Les Jones’s blog. Tricked out for Silhouette shooting. It’s interesting about custom guns not ever being able to recover what you will generally put into them. Not something I’ve seriously considered, by all my guns are production models, except for my Ruger Mk.III, which I put a Volquartsen trigger in. Much better than the Ruger stock trigger. Doesn’t matter if it doesn’t up the gun’s price by 100 dollars. If you shoot the gun enough, I agree it’s worth it.