The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
There’s a number of gun control bills in the New York Assembly that aren’t moving, as Jacob mentions, “In the past 18-19 years I’ve been following gun legislation I cannot recall ever seeing an antigun bill that was put on the Assembly Codes agenda fail to be moved out of Codes at that time.”
Gun control bills that never go anywhere are par for the course in most states, but we’ll take any signs of progress in New York as a positive development.
The Charlotte Observer is conducting a poll ahead of the NRA Annual Meeting. Obviously this is a scientifically rigorous poll, which it would be just terrible if all of you went and voted “Yes.” The Observer also notes that 70,000 people are expected for the meeting. So much for people being pissed about the venue.
We leave for Charlotte at 5AM tomorrow morning. It’s a ten hour drive from Philadelphia. Dan from PAFOA will be going down with us. We have to be there by 5:30PM for our first event. For those who might be going, we’re trying to organize a Foursquare Swarm at the Annual Meeting, so that NRA and the City of  Charlotte get its first swarm badge. I guess this means I need to sign up for Foursquare.
Eugene Volokh notes it’s titled “1877: America’s Year of Living Violently.”, and notes its publisher mentioned:
1877 is also notable as the comeback book for a celebrated U.S. historian. Michael Bellesiles is perhaps most famous as the target of an infamous “swiftboating†campaign by the National Rifle Association, following the publication of his Bancroft Prize-winning book Arming America (Knopf, 2000) — “the best kind of non-fiction,†according to the Chicago Tribune — which made daring claims about gun ownership in early America.
How about made false claims about guns in early America, such that his Bancroft prize was rescinded once it came to light. There was no “swiftboating campaign by NRA”. Last I checked neither Clayton Cramer nor Jim Lindgren were all that cozy with NRA. To be sure, Clayton has been an active part of the RKBA movement, but he’s contributed most to the academic body of literature supporting the individual right theory, and certainly does not take orders from Fairfax.
This is already starting on a good honest footing isn’t it? No doubt his publisher would love some controversy to drum up book sales, but let’s hope knowledgeable folks go over the claims in his new book with a fine tooth comb.
Bill Clinton just loves Mayor Mike’s work on gun control.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dztcsYI3rzs[/youtube]
I’m sure the Bradys really miss him. Bill knows as much as anyone what the NRA can do to you, and has said as much, but he never gave up the fight to eviscerate the Second Amendment. I thought Obama’s administration would make Clinton look like Charlton Heston. I’m glad to have been wrong (so far).
Gorden Brown resigned, and Queen Elizabeth has asked Tory leader David Cameron to form a new government. It will be a coalition government between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, who are not all that unlike our liberal Democrats, only with more a libertarian streak to them:
Sky News’ royal commentator Alastair Bruce said the Queen would have asked the Tory leader the constitutional question “Will you form the new administration?” and the moment he said “yes” he became prime minister of Great Britain.
Mr Bruce added: “And then his wife would have been invited into the room and they would all have had a jolly good chat.”
Mr Cameron is the 14th prime minister the Queen has dealt with.
Sky News’ royal correspondent Sarah Hughes said Mr Cameron’s audience with the Her Majesty lasted some 25 minutes.
The Queen wanted to prepare Mr. Cameron for his first gift from the Obama Administration, which no doubt took some time.  The operation is parliamentary systems is quite different from our own. Unlike our system, where coalitions are formed in the major political parties, with the hopes and dreams of the coalition members carried by one individual candidate, in a parliamentary system that happens in the government. The previous election in April was inconclusive, and resulted in a “hung parliament” since the Tories, while having gained many seats, did not quite achieve a majority of the seats. This left Gordon Brown the task of attempting to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. He failed, and tendered his resignation to the Queen, who asked David Cameron to form a new Administration. I would not expect that the Government David Cameron leads is going to be that effective. They will have to address many of the Liberal Democrat issues, and unless they gain a majority, will be subject to having the Liberal Dems bolt the coalition and take down the government. I would think that’s going to make it hard to get anything done, but perhaps they will be able to work together in areas where they do agree. It’ll be interested, at the least, to see what comes out of this.
Wow, this is pretty amazing. They take a complete non-answer from Senator David Vitter as an indication he’s climbing on board with their “terror gap” legislation, and follow up with claiming that C-rated Mary Landrieu, who’s A -rated opponent NRA endorsed in the last election, is somehow “pro-gun”  I guess an NRA C-rating is pro-gun from the Brady point of view. If the Bradys really had something to brag about it would be that Vitter’s opponent in the race is on board with the legislation, but his comment was that he would “talk about this later.” You can see it all in this article here. I think characterizing this as building momentum is a lot of wishful thinking on the part of the Brady Campaign.
SayUncle noted that someone dispatched a bear in self-defense with a .41 Magnum. I think Chris, who is located in Alaska, and I’m guessing has a bit more local knowledge about grizzly encounters than most, has some sage advice:
This is why we always carry bear spray and usually carry a gun too. The spray is Plan A, but if something decides to gnaw on me I want a plan B.
He notes that you’re much more likely to have a dangerous bear encounter in a National Park than anywhere else, and notes, “In any event, if you’re in AK doing lots of stuff outdoors, and you don’t carry at least bear spray, you’re stupid. Heck, we keep a can in each car because bears hang out around town too.”
I tend to agree with his approach, much the same way I advocate for people who carry guns to also carry a defensive spray. In a lot of cases, the spray is going to be the easiest and least problematic way out of a situation. The problem with gun control folks is that they want to sell you on the notion that one tool is really best for all situations. This is nonsense. Having both expands your capabilities and options, and there’s nothing wrong with either.
This article talks about how Apple is losing some of it’s lustre among tech people:
But, there’s evidence that Apple is losing some of its luster with techies. The company’s stubborn refusal to support Adobe Flash (which wins props with some IT pros but breaks a lot of Web sites), its draconian and ambiguous review policy for the App Store, and it’s strong-arm legal tactics with HTC and Gizmodo are having a negative impact on how young, tech-savvy professionals view Apple, according to YouGov’s BrandIndex.
I’m definitely not with Apple when it comes to strong arming HTC and Gizmodo, but when it comes to Adobe Flash, I am conflicted. I count myself among those who would like to use Flash on the iPhone, but I also am fully behind Apple’s efforts to try to destroy this monstrosity that’s been poisoning the Internet for years. You can see why it is to be loathed here and here. All valid reasons for hating Flash.
The only aspect of not having Flash on the iPhone that really drives me nuts are for video playback sites. This is something that probably will be mitigated by HTML5, when, sometime next Century, W3C finally gets around to cementing the standard. But will anyone use HTML5? There are issues with that as well, namely that it pushes video support on to the browser. I would like to see Flash die and be replaced by a W3C standard, but in the mean time it’s highly prevalent on the Internet, and becomes more widespread while the W3C dithers on a solid HTML5 standard.
Cemetery got pulled over on the way back from a match. In a normal state, this would go something like “Why yes, Officer, I do have firearms in the vehicle. They are locked security in the back, except for the loaded Glock in the glove box.” A few minutes later, you’d probably be on your way. But Cemetery did the right thing for Jersey, which is to shut up. I find his telling of the story hilarious, however:
But when I met up with my friend, I was still Cowboy’d Up cause she likes the clothes, I realized I stunk of sulfur, from shooting black magic. Makes me wonder if that’s what the Officer was smelling.
I’ll have to remember next I get pulled over after shooting black magic, that if I’m asked what that funky smell is, I’ll just say that I’ve been eating a bunch of chili. I think that will end the nosey business might quick.
Sounds like the right tactic to me.
At least according to Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution:
A hundred years from now, historians and sociologists will look back on these times and puzzle over the right’s utter fanaticism over firearms. Much like we look back today and wonder how New Englanders could really have believed that a few odd women might have been witches and burned them at the stake…
The rest is calling for removing the rights of Americans without due process of law, which I say historians will one day look back on, and say was kind of like when we denied many Americans their basic rights without due process in the South prior to the civil rights movement. Ridiculous assertion? No more than hers.