July 2010 – Page 17 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Catching Up

Since, like many of you, I’m off work today for the holiday, I’m catching up on some household stuff. Swapped out the light fixture in my office, and replaced it with one that could take CFL style bulbs. My old one took halogen spots, which I believe get a life extension until 2014, when you’ll have to replace them with LED lighting, but that is still tempting me to send the bill for the swap to Nancy Pelosi.

Either way, the reason I replaced is that the halogens throw off a lot of heat, and when the temperature is topping 100 degrees outside, and you don’t have central air, 150 watts is a tall order. Even if the room isn’t cooler, it feels cooler, and if it makes my room AC unit upstairs work that much less, it’s worth it.

I also had to get some files off Bitter’s old, dead Dell laptop, which I’ve been promising to do and not doing for a few months now. Since I got a new MacBook Pro from work a year or so ago I gave her my old one.

Now I need to go spray some RoundUp on grass I have growing in my side yard. It looks like I’ve planted wheat. I never go back there. More blogging later.

Grip Panels for a 22/45

I noticed this very nice customization of a Ruger Mk.III 22/45 over at Tam‘s. I shoot Silhouette with my 22/45, and like everything about it except the grip. The angle isn’t the problem so much as my hands are too big for the puny grip. I beefed it up a bit with a houge rubber sleeve, but that doesn’t work as nicely. I like the idea of being able to put real wood grips on it.

Waste of Taxpayer Dollars

Capitol Ideas is reporting on items in the state budget, namely about 30 million dollars of state funds going to create libraries for Arlen Specter, and a Center for Public Policy named after John Murtha. Yeah, maybe I’m crazy, but I tend to think education and parks ought to be a higher spending priority than Specter and Murtha’s legacy. Though, given what porkers they both were, perhaps this is fitting.

Castle Doctrine Dead

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is noting H.B. 40’s lack of movement. It still has to get through the appropriations committee before hitting the House Floor, where it clearly has enough votes to pass. The head of appropriations is Dwight Evans. Given that I’d say it’s probably safe to say it’s not getting a floor vote. This is one area I’ll be partisan with. We have to kick the Democrats out in November if we want to move any pro-gun bills through the Pennsylvania legislature. The cost of Castle Doctrine seems to have been all those anti-gun bills, but also the Lentz bill, which seems to be a high price for a bill that isn’t going to clear appropriations, in all likelihood.

Article Gun Trafficking in Philadelphia

This article is sure to outrage. Firstly, it gives an account of a criminal gun trafficker, who’s turned his life around you see, but he wants the legal dealers he criminally deceived to pay too:

“I’m supposed to have remorse for what I did. But you wanna tell me these bastards [the gun dealers], they sit back, and they say, ‘Oh well, you know, [Jerome], that was on him whatever he did after that,'” he says, his voice gravelly and angry but still quiet. “If I should feel remorse, these motherfuckers should feel remorse, too. Because I came in there, and they took the money, and they took the money, and they took the money, and they took the money, over and over and over again. And these fuckers are sittin’ in their houses, their nice little house, they go on sellin’ guns, day out and day in, with no consequence. None. None.

So he basically lied to a number of Philadelphia gun dealers about being the true purchaser, and now he wants them to feel sorry with them? Sorry, you’re the criminal asshole. The big question I have is why, if he was doing this in the 90s, is he still not in prison. It’s ten years for every illegal gun they can prove federally. Oh, but we have a former ATF agent too, who complains it’s just too hard to lock up FFLs:

THEYÃ¯’RE GETTING AWAY WITH IT: Joseph Vince spent 28 years with ATF, helped compile a database that traces where guns found in crimes came from and authored the 2004 report on Colosimo’s. He says the standard for prosecuting straw sellers is too restrictive: “You have to prove that they willfully did it, that they intentionally wanted to do it, that they absolutely knew what they were doing was wrong. The truth level is so high, it’s higher than any other [crime] I know of.”

Apparently he doesn’t like Mens Rea, a basic concept in our legal system that says for most serious crimes you must have intent to commit the crime. The article is so riddled withÂ inaccuracyÂ and distortion I could write aÂ dissertationÂ on it. In one shot they show pro-gun counter-protesters and claim them to be anti-gun protesters.

California Gun Control Movement Worried

At least one of their leaders isn’t just declaring victory after McDonald. This battle through the courts is going to be a long fight. Sometimes we’ll come out on top, sometimes they will come out on top. It’s unfortunate, but I believe the Courts, generally, will allow for more gun control than most of us would like. Probably more, honestly than is done in the vast majority of jurisdictions.

Downer

The Bradys manage to even make Independence Day depressing.

Happy Independence Day

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate our nation’s independence than to buy a cool American flag for your Austrian pistol:

Or perhaps celebrating theÂ nation’sÂ birth by blowing up a small part of it. I’ve always thought 4th of July at the Huffman household had to be pretty fun.

Screwing with My Childhood

I don’t know too many boys my age that didn’t love Wonder Woman growing up. We were strangely attracted to her, before we even know anything about sex. Â Now it seems like they are making alterations to the classic. Personally, I’ll take the classic:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ROi9Isk_5I[/youtube]

What’s not to like? And for someone about the same age as my mother would be, she still looks pretty good. I guess these days, people don’t expect their superheros to be cheesy, fight for truth, justice, and the American way, and all that jazz. Now they have to be hip and fashionable.

Quote of the Day

Joe Huffman is continuing his anti-gun cartoon posting theme over at View from North Central Idaho, and notes:

Alan Gura spoke about this some with us bloggers at the NRA convention this year. He is of the opinion the NRA is an expert at legislation and lobbying but that in our current situation civil rights lawsuits are most effective. This is not to say that we can’t have two or more solutions to the same problem but that we should recognize the the problem can be framed multiple ways and that depending upon the framing we change the solution set. And with those changing solution sets it may be that a different set of experts are needed.

I tend to agree that the two tracts are complimentary. I believe the Heller ruling had a serious and positive affect on your average American’s view of gun ownership. I suspect McDonald will add to that. But I think both sets of expertiseÂ are going to be needed moving forward. Reason being that I don’t think the federal courts are willing to carve out as broad a right we’d like them to. There are some places I think they will need, shall we say, persuading. Which is the genesis of this idea. My only hope is that the various people of each expertise can find a way to work together.