October 2010 – Page 11 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Good News on Castle Doctrine

Castle Doctrine has passed the Senate. Apparently they tried to amend a bill to close this bogus “Florida Loophole”, which failed 20-29. I have no news yet on what other amendments may or may not have been added. I had an election tonight at my gun club which left me unplugged for most of the evening.

I’ll be honest, I’m not happy that the reciprocity issue got 20 votes, including Tommy Tomlinson (my state Senator, who has always been friendly), and Stu Greenleaf, who was friendly most of the time.

We’re losing the Philly suburbs folks, and if we do that, Pennsylvania does not stay pro-gun. Tomlinson and Greenleaf ultimately voted with us on Castle Doctrine, which I do appreciate, but the vote to weaken reciprocity, with no concern for addressing our issues with the LTC system, is unconscionable in my book.

Brady Head Bashing

I highlighted this article at the end of the previous post, but I thought it was interesting enough to point it out in a separate one. I absolutely love reading passages like this:

“I think the Obama administration has been loathe to act on anything — or say anything — related to guns,” Chad Ramsey of the Brady Campaign told TPMMuckraker. “The administration has said almost nothing about the gun issue since Obama took office.”

Despite several attempts last week, TPMMuckraker was unable to get a White House official to respond to requests for comment about their priorities on gun control. Likewise, the Brady Campaign has tried to have a number of meetings with Obama administration officials, but “hasn’t had much luck,” Ramsey said.

So the Administration won’t even meet with them. No wonder they are upset. In other news, this is the first I’ve heard of Chad Ramsey. He must be a new hire, perhaps to replace Doug Pennington, a previous Brady spokesperson, who I think left to go work with unions. We wish him luck, as we do all Brady staffers who move on to other issues.

We legitimately did fear the worst from Obama, but it seems clear his passion for gun control was an inch deep, and not that much more wide. It has been one pleasant surprise from this Administration. Nontheless, he still put Kagan and Sotomayor on the high court at a time when increasing pro-Second Amendment votes on the Court is critical. In that respect, I think the Brady folk have been unduly harsh on him. We’re still one heart beat away from Obama being able to indirectly undo the worst thing that has ever happened to the gun control movement.

More on GOA’s Grades

A commenter last night pointed me to GOA’s Political Victory Fund and this web site here where tÂ offer a voting guide.Â But it still does not shed light on how GOA justifies such low grades for pro-gun Democrats. Thirdpower brought up the matter of Debbie Halvorson last week, and yesterday we had an attack on Walz. Halvorson has a longer record than a lot of newer Democrats. But what does GOA have on her?

She voted for the bailout, which has exactly nothing to do with guns.
She voted for three motions to recommit, which has about as much to do with voting against guns in national parks as the “no” votes on the final bill of GOA favorites Tom McClintock, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann, and Paul Broun and Â vote against the final bill did. These people are all legitimately pro-gun, but it makes no sense to count Democrat procedural votes on the bill, and not count these votes on final passage.
She voted on Obamacare, which has exactly nothing to do with guns, especially after Harry Reid (another favorite GOA whipping boy) got language inserted that protected the interests of gun owners.
She voted for DISCLOSE, which I’ll give GOA dinging her on, since they weren’t exempted from it. But I will point out the only pro-gun organization that would have been affected by DISCLOSE is the NRA had it not gotten itself exempted. GOA spends practically nothing on independent expenditures, and groups likes SAF have a tax status that does not allow for them to participate in elections. This isn’t a big enough gun issue to throw all the other pro-gun Dems under the bus for. If you’re willing to sacrifice those relations to preserve an activity you don’t participate in materially, I question your political judgement as a single-issue organization.

Taken together, this says that GOA is not strictly a gun rights organization. It is a conservative organization that markets itself as a gun rights organization. It’s fine if that’s how they want to play the game, but I don’t consider it an effective way of protecting the Second Amendment.

As a citizen, I am certainly not happy with Obamacare, bailouts, or DISCLOSE, but as an NRA member I’m very pleased they are seeking a bipartisan consensus on the Second Amendment that works across ideological lines. Ultimately, that’s the only way to protect rights in the long term, and it’s been very successful to date. I’m hoping to see the Bradys bashing their heads against the wall for a long time to come.

Castle Doctrine Being Held Hostage

Apparently by the animal rights people. According to NRA they have attached the pigeon shooting ban to HB 1926. Â This means that HB40 is now our only hope of passage of a clean bill.

Just to clarify, HB40 is the Castle Doctrine bill passed by the House last week, and now pending in the Senate. HB 1926 is another House Bill to which the Senate attached its version of the Castle Doctrine. There are currently two bill containing Castle Doctrine in the Senate, HB 40, and HB 1926. We’re looking to get a clean bill, no bad amendments, out of the Senate. Right now HB 40 is the only hope for that, since HB 1926 has been amended with undesirable language.

Crying Wolf Sexism

A Democratic candidate in a solidly Republican district in Virginia has had older photos of her, uh, boyfriend’s Halloween costume in her mouth. And his Halloween costume just happened to be a bright red sex toy and a leash.

Unfortunately, she’s screaming sexism. She’s convinced the media would never cover these photographs at all if she only had a penis. I would do quite a rant about why it’s not sexist to cover a political scandal, but I think the folks at Gawker said it best:

She continues: “I’m angry at the way women in this country are unfairly treated in this regard when they step up and run for office.” Because if a man sucked a rubber dick attached to the nose of another man, we would never publish that picture.

That link is also where you can find the pictures that include her posing in her revealed thigh highs, lace skirt, and drink in hand.

For the record, I realize that most reasonable people are going to have embarrassing skeletons in the closet. With the rise of digital photography and the ease of taking and storing pictures on devices that slide into your pocket, more of these types of photos will naturally be taken than they were before. These pictures don’t disqualify her for the office. They were apparently shortly after she graduated college, so it’s not surprising to see these kinds of antics among most people that age.

What I think makes her unqualified for my vote (if I had one there) is her screaming sexism where none exists. The fact is that these photos would be plastered around if she was a man. Oh, and her C rating from NRA doesn’t help her case to voters, either.

SAF Chicago Case Update

John Richardson has some detailed information about the Ezell v. Chicago case, sponsored by SAF. Looks like the judge denied the preliminary injunction. It’s amazing what the City of Chicago is claiming in this case. They are literally worried that the parking lots of shooting ranges present a potential for criminal activity and accidents, and therefore we have to be protected from ourselves. That’s what they think of us. The judge in this case also seems to be treating the right to bear arms as a property right, which I think is improper.

It’s a shame we don’t have a more friendly Congress. I’d get Congress to charter a few indoor ranges in Chicago using their militia powers, open them to the public, and defy Daley to try to do anything about it.

Fueling Unrest in Mexico

Clearly this recent phenomena of American guns being shipped to Mexico to fuel unrest must be stopped. Where was the ATF and ICE to stop this? How did they get the guns across the border? Clearly they needed more funding. Did H&R sell this first to the Mexican police? (at least I think it’s an H&R, not sure).

NRA-PVF Starting to Spend Money

Even the New York Times is saying a favorable word this year. The bill is going to be fifteen to twenty million this election cycle. One of the ads they are running is against Joe Sestak:

In a year that most people aren’t too concerned about guns, this ad doesn’t give it more than a passing mention. The messaging works out in Pennsylvania because we have pro-gun conservative Republicans running against anti-gun leafy Democrats, in both our major state-wide races. Dems here haven’t gotten the message that being anti-gun is uncool yet.

The great challenge this year is that everyone is worried about big government, deficits, spending, and the economy. A message that Joe Sestak is a wild-eyed gun grabber isn’t going to carry as much water as saying he’s an out of touch big government politician, who, by the way, doesn’t care much for your Second Amendment rights.

Duty to Retreat

The York Daily Record correctly points out that this case has nothing to do with castle doctrine. The guy basically fired a shot into the air, blocked the thief from leaving with another vehicle, and held him at gun point until police arrived. He has not been (and should not be) charged.

This falls pretty squarely under prosecutorialÂ discretion, probably significantly bolstered by the fact that the prosecution is well aware they will have a hard time finding a jury that’s going to convict this guy. In many ways, the civil immunity is the real change Castle Doctrine brings, despite the fact that it also revises the self-defense law. It’s highly unlikely that anywhere in Pennsylvania you’ll be convicted of shooting someone who has broken into your home, no matter what the law may technically say. Dave Hardy recently told of a similar situation in Arizona:

Here in AZ, with real juries, the results are quite different. A prosecutor once told me that he’d urged the County Attorney to stop prosecuting homeowners who shot burglars in the back. They’d just lost three of those cases in a row. Whatever the statute law might be, jurors saw one fewer burglar as a good thing and would not convict a fellow homeowner for having done a good thing.

Trial by jury is one of the most important legal institutions we inherited from English Law. It doesn’t really matter what the Arizona Revised Statutes or the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes say, if you can’t find a jury that will convict under those circumstances, the practice is, for all practical purposes, legal. Trial by jury is one of the great checks the people have on their government. Self-defense law is probably one of the areas the people differ most greatly from the officials who serve them. Castle Doctrine doesn’t do much more than bring statutory law into line with what most people think it already is, or should be. It’s not surprising, then, that the law has broad, bi-partisan support. Yet the politicians still don’t really want to vote on it, as the current debacle in the Pennsylvania Senate is showing us.

Philly Area Not Doing so Well

I’m not surprised we’ve lost so many jobs, considering what an awful place Pennsylvania is to do business. We have among the highest corporate tax rates in the country, and our government is increasingly looking for ways to make it even worse. If I were going to start a business, I’d go to an up and coming market. This area has been my home all my life, but it has no future as long as the people keep sending politicians to Harrisburg that make anti-business policy choices, and vote for bloated an expensive government. And this is just the ‘burbs I’m talking about. The City of Philadelphia is a basket case in its own right, and beginning to rival such stellar cities as Detroit and Baltimore in sheer craptitude.

The only thing we have going for us is housing prices haven’t taken as bad a beating as other markets, because we never bubbled very much since even in good times no one wants to live here.