2010 – Page 113 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Plans for the Holiday Weekend?

I hope everyone has an excellent holiday weekend, and get to spend time doing something fun with the family. We will be spending the holiday weekend working a table at a gun show. Now that the primary is over, and it’s officially election season, that means frequent appearances at places gun owners frequent, in an attempt to recruit volunteers for NRA endorsed candidates for November, and get the word out.

But this weekend I can’t help but feel like I need to BBQ some a piece of meat. But what piece of meat? Brisket requires me to lose sleep. Just did a pork butt a few weeks ago, so I’m pork butted out. Pork back ribs maybe? I like ribs, but I plan to make some ribs for my father in a few weeks. I like smoking fish, chicken, and sausage too, but it’s so easy it’s almost like grilling. If anyone has suggestions for a great meat to smoke that presents a bit of a challenge, but won’t keep me up, I’m all ears.

Giving Bloggers a Bad Name

If you haven’t followed the scandal down in South Carolina involving a blogger and a lawmaker, then be happy. The level of asshole-itude is incalculable. Bloggers actively trying to break up marriages with public announcements or meetings is never a pretty sight to see.

Short version: A political blogger known for being sharp tongued and full of attitude (not that there’s anything wrong with that, per se) announced on Monday that he had an affair with a married lawmaker who just happens to be the leading gubernatorial candidate in the Republican primary next month. He claimed the press was hot on the story and he was just coming out ahead of it. Funny about that since they don’t appear to have been at all. There were rumors, and one outlet may have looked into them, but no one was slated to publish anything as far as I’ve seen. The lawmaker gave an absolute denial that leaves no doubt her position is that she’s never had a physical relationship with any other man than her husband in their decade plus marriage.

Where it gets interesting: Erick from RedState has done some digging with South Carolina political folks and learned a few things. It seems that a competing campaign has been the source of the rumors that were floated, and all of “evidence” produced by the blogger – communication with the supposedly guilty campaign – actually says nothing of an affair, but really illustrates an effort to figure out more about the rumors. Even more interesting, RedState claims they will name the Republican campaign that paid the blogger to make these claims to destroy the other candidate.

Why this relates to this blog: First, if there are candidates out there who don’t wade into new media efforts very much, then there’s a black eye effect that could hurt other bloggers who try to reach out to campaigns. Second, I had my own – non-physical – encounter with this guy just before Charlotte that illustrates just how much of an asshole he is, and what a blowhard he is if he thinks he is getting attention.

I reached out to him about the Blog Bash since he seemed to be just a spirited blogger. (Unless you knew him through SC GOP politics, apparently his asshole factor wasn’t on full display.) He snapped back at me with some rant about the evils of the NRA because of a single grade issued like 10 years ago. He made sure to include cohorts on the email so he could brag that he told Fairfax to fuck off. Except, he didn’t know that I have my own version of “spirit,” shall we say. I wrote back to them all – staying sweet as pie (because that’s what a Southern woman does when she’s being evil) – pointing out that if he read even the first paragraph he would know that none of his complaints were remotely relevant to my email.

Getting publicly called out is a funny thing. Suddenly there was an apology email that didn’t include cohorts, but still declined, pointing out that he doesn’t consider himself to be a blogger, but a news outlet. So I dropped names of much bigger, national actual news outlets coming down to the events, and that really shut him up. I never made any effort, in the sweetness that would send most people into sugar shock, to invite him again.

It’s rather shocking to find out just how dirty South Carolina politics really is, when Mark Sanford’s “Appalachian hike” wasn’t anywhere near the worst of it.

When the news broke, I made the comment to Sebastian about how happy I was we got a glimpse of him before this happened. Since, after all, I like to keep the number of people who lie and cheat while breaking up marriages to a minimum at the Blog Bash.

Thomas Not Happy About Defeat in PA House

Representative Thomas was the sponsor of three of the bills, the gun control bills, that were defeated in committee this week in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He is not too pleased with the result, which naturally pleases me:

“There is no reason why anyone should bring a weapon with a 30-round clip into a residential neighborhood,” Thomas said.

Thomas said that, after much debate, his bills were not approved by a committee majority.

[…]

Thomas said he particularly thinks he will garner support for H.B. 1044 considering that the courts have already upheld the constitutionality of 37 local gun ordinances.

“Right now, municipalities’ hands are tied by the PA Uniform Firearms Law. I think it’s just a matter of time until my bill becomes law,” Thomas said.

Funny, I have several dozen 30 round “clips” in a residential neighborhood and they haven’t managed to jump out of the safe and kill anyone yet. I have to admire his optimism in the face of a stunning defeat — the votes in all three cases were very lopsided — but we will continue to oppose his agenda. I’m sorry, but you’re not going to make me a criminal because I happen to go through the wrong town on the way to a shooting match. Especially not when the state police commissioner, a guy who is thoroughly anti-gun, and aÂ cronyÂ of Ed Rendell, is the one making that call.

Juries Must Decide on Machine Gun Possession

The government made the claim that the federal law providing for a thirty year sentence for the commission of a crime with a machine gun was a sentencing enhancement, and therefore whether the gun was a machine gun could be decided by a judge by preponderance of the evidence, and applied during sentencing. The Supreme Court has ruled against the government’s position, ruling that the federal law in question 18 USC 924(c)1(B)(ii) was a separate federal crime, and that it had to be charged in an indictment and proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury.

Not much of an effect on gun owners here, unless you plan to rob a bank with a gun the feds later claim to be a machine gun.

High Tech Shooting in Germany

This post comes to us from the Firearms Blog:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyq90LEZe4k[/youtube]

I’m going to guess that membership in this club isn’t cheap, but it’s an interesting way to solve a lot of problems shooting ranges have. Namely, I’m going to guess that lead management is no issue here. I notice they have neat buckets on the trap range, and you see no shells on the ground. I guess no good German would want to dirty the range.

Brady Membership Numbers

Joe Huffman has a great find, namely the number of Brady Campaign members, and how many have recently donated. Short answer is, it doesn’t look good for them. But go over and have a look.

Most groups don’t want their membership numbers to be public. NRA keeps the exact figure a not so closely guarded secret, but my understanding is NRA is currently running a good bit higher than 4 million members, but I guess not quite enough to claim 5 yet. Still, that’s orders of magnitude more than the Bradys claim. To compare to NRA, I would only look at the number of Brady donors who have given in the past twelve months.

UPDATE: I should also point out that it’s interesting Brady is selling their list. NRA does not sell its membership list. It’s one of the reasons we know Frank Luntz poll claiming to be polling NRA members is completely bogus. There’s no way for the pollster to know.

Standoff in Bethlehem

This one was due to a prank call from someone on a deactivated pre-paid cell phone telling police he had just shot his wife and was going to shoot himself. They apparently extracted everyone from the house, and the calls kept coming. What I want to know is, why call out the “emergency response team” for a guyÂ threateningÂ to complete the suicide part of the murder-suicide. Shouldn’t the correct response to “I just shot my wife, and I’m going to shoot myself,” be “It would be nice if you could save the taxpayers all that money. Go ahead. I’ll wait for the bang to dispatch the meat wagon?”

ATF Redefines Transfers

Hopefully this is not a harbinger of more to come, though that wouldn’t surprise me, but ATF has concluded that certain transfers by manufacturer FFLs should be subject to the Gun Control Act and Brady Act:

Reversing an interpretation of the Gun Control Act that has been on the books for more than four decades, ATF todayÂ posted a rulingdeclaring any shipment of a firearm by a manufacturer (FFL) to any agent or business (e.g., an engineering-design firm, patent lawyer, testing lab, gun writer, etc.) for a bona fide business purpose to be a “transfer” under the Gun Control Act of 1968.Â As a consequence, legitimate business-related shipments will now require the recipient to complete a Form 4473 and undergo a Brady criminal background check.Â In many instances, these requirements will force shipments to a third party, thereby lengthening the process and the time that the firearm is in transit.

But of course this is to prevent criminals from exploiting the dreaded engineering design firm loophope. Well, except that, “ATF is unable to identify a single instance during the past 40 years where a single firearm shipped in reliance upon ATF’s rulings was used in a crime.” Well, that may be, but surely terrorists are going to become patent attorneys so they can steal the guns they are sent to evaluate, and use them to shoot down jetliners. It’s only a matter of time.

Why Independence Seaport Museum Can’t Raise the Money

Speaking once again of saving the Olympia, I found this explanation for why they might have difficulty raising the money to save this floating bit of history. From Wikipedia:

In June 2007 former Independence Seaport Museum president John S. Carter pleaded guilty to charges ofÂ fraud andÂ tax evasion from misappropriating more than US$1 million in funds from the museum. He received a fifteen year sentence in federal prison.^[3] Carter, who was president of the museum from 1989 to March 2006, was accused of using money from the museum to buy numerous personal items, including two boats, an espresso machine and a carriage house for his home inÂ Cape Cod between 1997 and 2006.^[2]^[4]

So it looks like Philadelphia’s penchant for graft and corruption will finally end up doing what the Spanish could never do.

Sea Shepherd Trial Begins

Japan is not noted for having a fair justice system that respects the rights of the accused. But these idiots probably should have thought of that before boarding a Japanese vessel on the high seas. Interesting that he’s facing knife charges. What’s the difference between a legal and illegal knife in Japan? Surely they have cutlery.