Apparently one man’s super-secret hiding place for his pistol was so good, even his wife didn’t know, which turned into hilarity when she took the trash out. I wonder how many years a Glock can remain functional in a landfill?
Month: May 2010
Dueling Op-Eds
Professor Lawrence Rosenthal argues that the Second Amendment isn’t protecting a right that’s sufficiently fundamental to warrant incorporating it. Joyce Lee Malcolm takes the other side of the coin.
I guess the Inquirer is making at least an attempt at balance in its opinion pieces.
So, Lost
Sebastian is in the disappointed camp. I’m in a camp where I thought they needed to do more in earlier episodes to answer basic questions people have had since season one. But overall, I liked it. Vincent definitely made it a tearjerker.
UPDATE [By Sebastian]: I’m less disappointed now than I was last night. Really, the show “Lost” about the characters wrapped up cleanly. The big remaining questions are about the Island, namely what the hell is it and how did it get there? What’s it’s history? How does the giant wheel manipulate space and time? And how did Hugo and Ben run the Island after they took over from Jacob who took over from Jack?
But maybe in the end the Island doesn’t really matter all that much. Presumably the people on the plane got off, and lead full lives thereafter, and Hugo and Ben spent a long time protecting the Island. The sort of “flash-sideways” seems to have been a sort of parallel dimension where they were all dead but didn’t realize it, but had to realize it in order to move on.
From the Floor: Miniature Arms Society
I ran into some folks from the Miniature Arms Society at their booth in Phoenix, on the show floor, and again in Charlotte. I meant to blog about this last year, but just never got around to it. They say they will be in Pittsburgh, and if they are, I highly encourage stopping by. Hell, coming to Pittsburgh just to see their craftwork is worth the trip, I think. The scale version of the guns in their booth is, quite simply, amazing.
These folks basically produce scale versions of firearms. The are so well done, I had to start using something for reference, because just looking at pictures, you can’t tell they are scale. Here’s one of a lever action gun, that was probably only about a foot long.
At the booth in Phoenix I talked to a gentleman by the name of David Kucer, who 
made a number of the guns in their display case. He is a veteran of World War II, and the first miniature gun he made was a replica of the M1911, a version of which he carried in the service. He was kind enough to retrieve this very gun, which was not in their display case, and show it to Dan and me. In order to give a good idea of just how amazingly small this completely functional 1911 is, I had to take the picture in hand to scale.
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It’s just completely amazing to me that the miniature 1911 has all functioning parts, including a functioning slide. Mr. Kucer also made this pepper box pistol, and I’m guessing they make all the cases for these items as well. The amount of craftsmanship and skill that has to go into making one of these, not even mentioning the time, is just fascinating to me. I have a step stool I built in wood shop in high school, but other than that, I don’t really have any creations like this to my name. Certainly not works of art like these. Their booth is literally filled with tiny little creations, including a brass knuckle, pistol combination, a Webley break top revolver about the size of an iPhone, miniature pen knives. You name it.
In their booth you could also find a lot of other various items, from scale artillery and mortar pieces, to scaled down rounds of ammunition. You can see some of those items in the picture to your left. How about the Weston 3mm Centerfire? Or the the cartridges meant to fire in the 1/6th scale Gatling Gun? One mike-mike percussion caps? All pretty neat stuff. If you can get out to Pittsburgh next year, they said they will be there. Stop by. You can tell these guys are very proud of what they do, and they ought to be. They’ll be happy to show you their craftsman and artisanship. And how would all you 1911 lovers out there like to hang this on your wall?
A Day at the Range: Media Style
If the MSM reported your day at the range, from the Onion. Funny stuff.
President Calderon Statements Before Congress
I thought for a bit about how to cover this, but I thought that Jim Geraghty and Cam Edwards of NRANews did a better job than I could ever do commenting on the remarks of Mexican President Calderon before the United States Congress.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNe06W4xosM[/youtube]
Normally I would agree that this is pretty bad diplomacy, but I think there’s a domestic contingent that is quite happy to have the Mexican President come before the Congress and demand we re-instate the assault weapons ban. I don’t think this was an accident, and we should be angry that so many Democrats applauded him.
But why don’t we have these problems on our side of the border? This came up during the segment too, and my take is that, in addition to having a relatively uncorrupt police force and military, Americans have a fairly long history of dealing harshly with unsavory elements that try to terrorize communities into submission. In terms of the conflagration boiling down in Mexico, that has in our history crossed over our borders, and we have a history of arming ourselves against it. Dave Hardy posts an advertisement from Auto Ordinance from the 1920s which clearly markets the gun as a way to repeal border raiders.
Range Loophole
Apparently you can rent a gun without a background check. There’s always going to be a loophole.
Does Gutting Racist Public Sentiment Trump Property Rights?
I’m generally in agreement with SayUncle and Tam on this matter of people accusing Rand Paul of racism. But I also recognize that standing on the opposite side of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is a loser of a political stance. It’s not going to win you much among the population, and it helps opponents of the GOP paint it as “that kind of party” (even though Republicans voted for CRA ’64 in greater percentages than Dems). Part of the reason is that we’re not quite past the Jim Crow era enough for people to forgive and forget, but I do think that time is fast coming.
I’m going to forgive previous generations for believing the driving a stake through the heart of Jim Crow, and the public culture it spawned, was worth pissing on property rights for a bit. I believe it was worth it. But Jim Crow is gone. It’s not that racism is, but I think we’re fast approaching a point where disdain for racism will be a strong enough incentive to discourage any racist business practices among proprietors of public accommodations. At some point we could allow property rights to re-assert itself. Let social shame deal with the miscreants and keep the Government out of those kinds of affairs.
Crime Down During NRA Convention
I’m going to wrap up my convention coverage this weekend. I want to post a little more on the law seminar, and I have one more report from the floor to do. But right now NRA is releasing that the City of Charlotte noticed a 45% drop in crime from the same week last year when the NRA convention was in town, despite the fact that if you dropped the NRA Annual Meeting into the middle of Podunk, it would have been North Carolina’s 10th largest city.
NRA Facts & Figures
The last several years, I’ve posted various facts and figures about NRA membership and participation as told through the lens of votes in the board of directors elections. I know a few people find it interesting, but I always wondered if there was really a purpose. It turns out that it did serve a purpose. I learned that one of our endorsed candidates this year actually found the data when he was looking to run, and used it when making plans for his successful campaign.
In that spirit, here’s the latest data & analysis of how NRA members vote (they don’t) and how you can make a difference (it’s easy) if you want to see certain board candidates rise or fall on the ballot.
There was a significant jump in both the number of eligible voting members this year, and the dramatic rise in the corresponding number of ballots cast. This tells me that either NRA is reaching new, more excited members or the number of people taking the plunge into life memberships may be increasing. I wondered whether there was there could be a subtle influence from the tea party efforts to educate their members on how political parties work to take them over, as such lessons could easily be applied to civic organizations like NRA.
Since the large numbers make it harder to see trends, let’s look at the participation rate for the last few years. You can really see that spike. It’s also worth noting that the next largest number was 3 years ago – the last election for nearly the same slate of candidates. Then I realized that the spike was probably predictable if we saw a jump with the same batch. What causes it? Easy, this is a celebrity ballot. Ollie North, Ted Nugent, Susan Howard, Richard Childress, and Karl Malone. That doesn’t include other widely known political names on the ballot like Don Young, Bob Barr, Matt Blunt, and Larry Craig.
One surprise from this year’s election was not just that Joaquin Jackson won, but how well he did (14 of 25). Apparently the current crop of NRA board voters don’t realize that he threw a significant number of gun owners under the bus, or they just don’t care. Alas, that means he has three more years in which to put his foot in his mouth as a board member.
What’s so frustrating about this is that it is so easy to make a difference in an NRA board election because so few people take the time to vote.
| “Losing” Candidates | Vote Tallies | Difference from Previous Candidate |
| Donn DiBiasio* | 63,817 | 752 |
| Steven Schreiner | 62,710 | 1,107 |
| Carol Hallett | 61,850 | 860 |
| Kenneth Hanson | 61,479 | 371 |
| Leo Holt | 59,666 | 1,813 |
| Marion Townsend | 55,157 | 4,509 |
*Elected 76th Director at the meeting. Interestingly, this is the 2nd time he has “lost” and managed to earn a seat for another year.
Just 752 votes determined the “last winner” and “first loser” this year. Last year, it was 725 votes.
If you have a preferred slate of candidates, share them with every voting member you know. Do it quickly after the ballots arrive in your mailbox, or those folks might throw their ballots away. Just like in a political race, a personal endorsement from someone a gun owner knows or respects can carry a lot of weight. In fact, in a race like this where many of the candidates are unknowns, these endorsements make a much bigger impact. It’s why we try to highlight our absolute favorites on the ballot each year. (We vote for more than we list in our endorsements, though usually not for a full slate of 25.)