2010 – Page 147 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Feds Raid Radical Christian Group

Apparently I missed the part where Jesus said “Do onto others as you would like done unto you, except for, you know, if you want to blow them up with IEDs.”

The indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court today claims that the Hutaree planned to kill an unidentified member of local law enforcement and then attack the law enforcement officers who gather in Michigan for the funeral. According to the plan, the Hutaree would attack law enforcement vehicles during the funeral procession with improvised explosive devices rigged with projectiles, which constitute weapons of mass destruction, according to the announcement by U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade.

Good work on the part of the FBI and US Attorneys. The last thing we need is groups like this running around blowing up cops at a time when a the political situation is a bit on edge, and the media is only too happy to smear the views of ordinaryÂ peaceableÂ Americans with this extremist nonsense.

UPDATE: There seems to be some question about being charged with WMD violations. It’s not uncommon in law to define something that has a common and generally accepted definition as something different for the purpose of a specific statute. WMD is defined in the United States Code’s anti-terrorism laws as including destructive devices. It does not change that definition for ordinary criminal possession of an unregistered destructive device, but only for a destructive device someone “uses, threatens, or attempts or conspires to use” against any person or property within the United States, and having some nexus to interstate or foreign commerce.

The reason the US Attorney will use the anti-terrorism laws is because you have up to the possibility of a life sentence (death sentence if you actually kill someone) under these laws, as opposed to having an unregistered DD, which will only get you ten years. Given the circumstances, I think the US Attorney is correct in using the anti-terrorism statutes.

A Great Slogan

“Some forms of therapy are not covered under Obamacare.”

The Gun Designed by Politicians

Tam is having issues with her Ruger Mk.III 22/45. I shoot the Hunter version of the same pistol when I do metallic silhouette, which is a few times a month. The loaded chamber indicator and magazine safety are problems in this design, if you ask me. I haven’t had Tam’s specific problem, but I’ve had other weird malfs that resolve themselves when you remove and re-seat the mag. The magazine safety is just a bad bad idea, for a lot of reasons, and the loaded chamber indicator (also a bad idea) makes the chamber very difficult to clean. The LCI will get gunked up over time, which always makes me nervous, because the smooth operation of the spring on the Mk.III LCI is critical to prevent a strike on the LCI flag from setting off the round (such as if you drop the gun).

I chose to solve the problem of fussy internals by getting a Volquartsen trigger kit. It doesn’t get rid of the two bad features, but it’s much much better than the factory Ruger trigger, and I’ve yet to have any serious problems with stoppages and the like. It helps make the Mk.III into a pretty nice shooter. They also have a kit for the Mk.II as well. I would highly recommend.

I understand that Ruger wants the Mk.III line to be legal in as many states as possible, but my suggestion for Ruger would be to either go back to the original Mk.II design, or at the least make the LCI and mag safety easy to take out. In computer user interface design, it’s a given that you never want to cripple your advanced users for the sake of novices. That philosophy can be applied to pistols too, I think. You can’t really beat the price point of the Mk.III and Mk.II for what you get, and with the addition of the Volquartsen kit, can be just fine for competition use. It’s a shame that anti-gun politicians have turned this flagship brand in American shooting down such a wrong path.

Southwest’s PR Nightmare

So anyone who has ever flown Southwest with a particularly gregarious flight attendant knows that the airline is pretty fast and loose with what they allow their staff to say on the PA system – usually in a very good way with humor and spirit injected into the announcements. As someone with a friend who had family working for Southwest, I know some of the amusing antics that are supposed to entertain, but are also used to convey relevant information to the flight. (Example: “This is a non-smoking flight and you may not tamper with the smoke detectors. However, if you must smoke, you may step out onto the wing and become our feature film, Gone with the Wind.)

Little did we know that the Southwest definition of amusing antics included electioneering for animal rights groups trying to shut down hunting and farming.

HumaneWatch has a story of a flight to Ohio on Thursday where a flight attendant welcomed the passengers to the ground by promoting HSUS’s website in favor of a ballot initiative there. As the swarm of condemnation started, Southwest released a statement saying they don’t condone the actions of the flight attendant. Great. But I want to know what policy Southwest had on the books that made the flight attendant believe that electioneering via the PA system was acceptable practice.

It seems to me that Southwest could maintain a fairly open policy about being friendly on the intercom while still saying somethings are off limits. Flight attendants have a captive audience where customers cannot immediately get up and leave if the crew are the ones misbehaving. It shouldn’t be a stretch for airline to tell their staff that they leave their politics at home when flying.

It’s a good thing for Southwest that the Supreme Court opened up the campaign finance laws for corporations recently, otherwise I would be inquiring as to the fair market value of such political ads on a captive audience forced to listen to the crew by federal law. I’d hate to think that Southwest wouldn’t report such a donation.

Right to Carry Still Alive in Iowa

The Iowa Senate overwhelmingly passed a right-to-carry bill, and now the debate is moving on to the house. The biggest opposition is actually coming from our own side, who is pushing a Vermont carry bill. Vermont carry is a non-starter. It’s not going to pass. GOA and its state affiliates have consistently been willing to let the perfect be the enemy of the good in state after state by opposing bills that stand a good chance of passing, and will make life measurably better for gun owners, and pushing bill that have zero change of passage. The best thing for Iowa is to pass this now, and we’ll work on Vermont carry in states where it’s feasible to push that agenda, such as Arizona currently.

Going on the Offensive

I mentioned last week that we were going to start profiling pro-gun campaigns that could use a financial lift on our activist site – PAGunRights.com. Last week’s race was chosen because it’s a pro-gun seat at risk to be taken over by an extremely anti-gun opponent. But this week’s race, well, we’re going on the offensive. We’re aiming to boot an unpopular anti-gun Republican out of the state house.

We got this tip from a fellow NRA EVC who has a volunteer who decided that if their elected representative wasn’t going to represent the district, someone would challenge him. So with that, Jonathan Jenkins decided to step up and run against the anti-gunner himself.

The incumbent is a D- rated Republican. He did technically win the local party’s endorsement over Jenkins, but only on the 3rd ballot by the minimum number of votes needed after much wrangling once he realized his local folks weren’t too happy. While normally I would view a primary challenger who can’t get support from the local folks as a near impossibility, I think the number of ballots it took to get to the bare minimum for endorsement shows that there’s something good going on in the district. With resources, Jenkins can get his message out to the Republican voters and get the district back on the right track.

So if you have a few bucks to spare, he could use it and we could actually make gains in Harrisburg with the right kind of Republican candidates. If you’re anywhere near the area, I’m sure his campaign could use some more feet on the ground.

More Constitutional Amendment Suggestions

Randy Barnett has a different variation on a federalism amendment. Section two is the one I find most interesting:

Section 2. Whenever two thirds of the Governors of the several States concur, they may rescind any law or regulation of the United States, or they may propose amendments to this Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.

I actually would suggest something even a little more radical. To allow the state legislatures of just 1/5th of the several states, which would be ten states currently, to propose repealing federal laws by putting the matter to a referendum vote. So if ten states vote to, say, repeal ObamaCare, it would go on the ballot to be voted on by the people. It would look something like this:

Section 2. Whenever one fifth of the legislatures of the several states shall concur, they may propose toÂ rescindÂ a law the United States, which shall beÂ rescindedÂ for all intents and purposes, whenever the people in two thirds of the states shall approve through direct vote, to be held on the election day for members of the United States Congress, according to the law of each state in which the ballot measure shall be held.

I think the barrier to amending the constitution needs to be pretty high, but I’m not too concerned about the people being able toÂ rescindÂ federal laws, especially if they are unpopular. What do you think?

Dozens, Thousands, What’s the Difference?

CNN apparently reported that “dozens” or maybe “hundreds” of people attending the Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nevada, which featured Sarah Palin as the speaker. You can find pictures from the American Border Patrol here, which show just how small the crowd really is. As Bruce notes, “[I]t’s not a lie to describe 10,000+ people as ‘dozens’. Just as its not a lie to say Nome, Alaska is ‘within walking distance’ to Miami – it’s just a shitload of walking.” These people are going to be in for a rude awakening come November.

The Chicago Way

So what’s the big deal about Sarah PalinÂ sayingÂ “reload” when someone has clearly educated Obama in the Chicago Way.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0RLyxP13o[/youtube]

Say what you will, but I consider this progress in terms of bringing Obama around to the idea of gun rights.

Hat Tip to Instapundit.

Annals of Drunkenness

There’s drunk, and then there’s this.