November 2011 – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

How are Bloomberg’s PA Mayors Holding Up?

Most of tonight’s elections in Pennsylvania are municipal races, and many of the county governments don’t do any form of electronic reporting for their election results. Regardless, this is my attempt to keep up with those races where we can find information online. I’ll update this post regularly as we add more races.

Keep checking in for updates to this post.

Good News for Gun Owners

Aliquippa Bloomberg Buddy Anthony Battalini lost his primary handily 2-1 earlier this year. So, clearly he’s out today. Aliquippa residents should let mayor-elect Dwan Walker to support their rights.
Reading‘s Tom McMahon who welcomed Bloomberg’s bus tour is stepping down and did not run for re-election.

Bad News for Freedom & Liberty

Parker City‘s Bloomberg-backed mayor William McCall was unchallenged today. He is a Republican who is standing against our rights.
Whitehall‘s Edward Hozza managed to win both the GOP & Democratic ballot earlier this year, so he didn’t have any competition today.
In Wilkes Barre, Tom Leighton who takes pride in his anti-gun credentials won re-election tonight. On the upside, his anti-freedom efforts are limited to MAIG activities since his failed campaign for a seat in the state legislature a couple of years ago.
As mayor of Farrell, Ollie McKeithan, was unchallenged and will serve another term.
Results in Montour County aren’t actually available right now, but since Bloomberg supporter Ester Cotner won her primary unchallenged on both sides with a whopping 13 votes – total cast – she will win again tonight in Washingtonville.
Easton‘s mayor Sal Panto handily won re-election to continue advancing his anti-gun agenda.

We’re Not Sure

In Freeland Borough, MAIG still lists a mayor who died more than a year ago on their website. In fact, they’ve been signing his name to ads & letters as recently as last month. More on this in a minute. In regards to the election, his wife was running and took the lead with 50% of the precincts reporting.

Holder Refuses to Apologize to Terry Family

Over at Real Clear Politics, they have a transcript and video of Holder’s testimony in this regard:

It is not fair, however, to assume that the mistakes that happened in Fast & Furious directly led to the death of Agent Terry.

Fast and Furious guns were found at the murder scene of the agent. How is it possible that Holder believe the operation can escape blame for this? The only thing that makes logical sense is that Holder is fatalistic about being able to stop the cartels from getting their hands on firearms, a position gun control advocates are often quick to criticize when such positions are espoused by gun rights advocates.

Holder is trying to have his cake and eat it too. If keepings guns out of the hands of criminals is an effective policy to protect law enforcement, and if Fast and Furious deliberately allowed weapons to be put into the hands of criminals, then he should admit responsibility and apologize to the family for the operation. If it is not effective at disarming cartels, then the gun control laws and regulations Holder is demanding won’t have any effect on the violence, will they?

Ultimately, like trying to put out a raging house fire with a garden hose, I would agree with Holder if his position is that disarming the cartels is a fool’s errand. But in that same analogy, Holder wants us to believe that throwing a bucket of gasoline onto the flame doesn’t make him responsible when those fighting the fire end up burned. We might ultimately agree on the fool’s errand, but I think it’s lamentable to take actions that clearly can only make the situation worse, rather than better, then try to evade responsibility for those actions.

Hat tip to Instapundit

More Testimony From Holder

He’s incredulous that the DOJ is being sued over the long gun reporting requirement. In response to Senator Feinstein:

I think that that regulation requirement is an extremely reasonable one. It has all of the features that you have described and I think significantly is totally consistent — it is exactly what we have been doing for years with regard to the sale of handguns. And the notion that somehow or other we are in litigation now, being sued try to do the very same thing that we have done with handguns for years with regard to weapons that are far more dangerous, is really beyond me.

I don’t understand how that can be opposed given the fact that this would provide ATF, other federal agencies with useful information in trying to stop the problem that has been the subject of so much discussion. Those that have been some of the harshest critics of ATF have voted against this very, very sensible regulation. The House tried – has voted to block it. And I guess over 270 members of — of the House voted against what I think as I said is a very reasonable regulation and one that is totally consistent, exactly consistent with what we’ve been doing with handguns for years. I think since the mid 80’s.

First, the real objection to this, for anyone who cares about the rule of law, is there’s just no power granted by Congress to implement this regulation. In fact, the Gun Control Act, as amended by the Firearms Owners Protection Act, specifically forbids the Attorney General from promulgating this kind of regulation. I wouldn’t care if the regulation was for handing lollipops to little children: we have laws in this country and the executive branch is bound to them. The Attorney General is not a dictator.

Secondly it seems ridiculous, when the ATF was unable to keep track of firearms that dealers were voluntarily reporting, how it’s going to help ATF to have many times the amount of data to process.

He’s in Trouble Now

Holder has been testifying before the Senate:

LEAHY: Well thank you very much and Attorney General Holder, would you please stand, raise your right hand.Â Do you swear that the testimony you’re about to give before this committee be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.

HOLDER: I do.

We know he has trouble in this area.

Repeal the Second Amendment

Looks like at least one gun control group, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, is getting on board with this idea. I’m not all that surprised. They’ve consistently refused to acknowledge Heller was correct, in stark contrast to the Brady Campaign accepting the ruling, provided it means being limited to having a gun in the home.

NRA Wins on Training Requirement in Wisconsin

The 4-hour minimum training required by the DOJ has been tossed. You still must obtain training, but there’s no longer any minimum time requirement, and a basic NRA pistol course would qualify. I believe this makes the training requirement for Wisconsin to be very similar to Florida.

Election Day 2011 NRA Endorsements

Tuesday is Election Day! We’ll be heading out to vote tomorrow, and I hope you folks will be as well. (If you don’t live in PA, this post doesn’t really relate to you, but you can visit the PVF page for endorsements in your state.)

Did you know the NRA has issued endorsements in several of the judicial races? Yeah, you’d think as EVCs, we would have been told before Cam mentioned it on NRA News last week… Oh well, we know now.

For the Supreme Court, NRA supports J. Michael Eakin.

At the Superior Court level, NRA supports Vic Stabile.

For Commonwealth Court, NRA supports Anne Covey.

Polls open at 7am and close at 8pm. There will likely be absolutely no wait, so don’t tell me you don’t have time to go vote.

Want to Make Something More Popular?

Ban it. Apparently across the pond fox hunting is more popular than ever:

Yet a bigger factor appears to be that exquisitely delinquent streak in the British character that reacts against the hectoring and bossiness of officialdom. As a result, thousands of people who previously had little obvious interest in hunting have taken it up.

â€œOur membership has doubled to around 1,000 since the law was passed,â€ says Sam Butler, the Warwickshireâ€™s ebullient Master. â€œThe support we are getting from the communities is incredible.

That certainly pleases me to hear there is at least some willingness to resist intrusions into country life over there. We had a similar experience over on this side of the Atlantic with the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. The “banned” weapons had a great increase in popularity both during the ban, and after it expired. The AR-15 was not as widely owned when they were banned in 1994. Shooters generally preferred the M1A, M1 Garand, or M1 carbines. Despite the fact that all of these firearms are military arms, or of a military pattern, they were popular, and so most states excepted them from their bans. They were also exempted from the federal ban. The AR-15 was not, and was, in fact, targeted by state and federal bans by name. Seventeen years later, and seven years after the expiration of the ban, the AR-15 is far more popular than any of the exempted firearms.

The ban had the unintended effect of piquing interesting in the banned rifles among shooters, and many competitors found the AR-15 more accurate and better suited for shooting matches. Collectors also developed interest. Americans, I believe, also possess the same “character that reacts against the hectoring and bossiness of officialdom,” as their British cousins.

My first rifle was an AK-47 patterned Romanian SAR1, which was not covered by the ban. I bought it specifically to make a statement. I didn’t really get into shooting in any serious way until later. In fact, it was the Assault Weapons Ban movement that made me start paying attention to the right to keep and bear arms, and developed my concern that the Second Amendment was in serious danger. I think there’s a whole generation of shooters who became concerned about their rights specifically through the 1994 ban.

I could make a good argument, in hindsight, that lobbying for, and eventually passing that ban, was the biggest strategic mistake the other side made. It was a bridge too far.Â It’s refreshing to see the fox hunting ban in the UK may be having the same kind of effect, especially since much of it is being driven by the political dominance of urban dwellers in the UK, who know nothing of the English and Welsh countryside, but who want to regulate life there heavily nonetheless, their traditions and pastimes be damned. That can have unintended consequences, and as our opponents on the “assault weapons” issue here would probably be willing to admit in their weaker moments, that doesn’t always work out in their favor over the long run.

Dear Amy

From an advice column over at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a woman asks what to do about “When our family gets together for any holiday, my niece’s husband has to bring a gun with him.” The husband in question has a valid permit to carry, and she has requested that he leave the gun at home. The husband said either she accepts it, or he won’t be coming over for the holidays.

Of course, Dear Amy consults those noted gun experts at the Brady Campaign and dispenses their advice, which if they had any power, would probably be to call social services on the guy and have his children taken away. But since we don’t live in Brady world, they just yammer about how guns are just going to cause tragedy, reciting long debunked studies about how guns are more likely to kill family members than intruders.

Personally, I’ve never had to deal with anything like this. My first question to the husband would be how these people know he’s carrying? I’ve always found discretion is the best policy in situations with sensitive family. Really, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. It’s always been my policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of firearms.

If I were the husband, I’d just stay home, unless it was important to my wife to go, in which case I’d abide by the wishes of the aunt who does not approve of firearms in her home. It is her home, at the end of the day, and she can make the rules. But I’d probably also try to talk to her about her irrational fears if the wife was OK with that. Bitter and I have never had this problem, however, because neither of us have had issues with relatives of this nature. I have relatives who probably would not approve of firearm carriage, but I never saw any reason to broach the topic.

Gun Control Crowd Still Harassing Caren Merrick

Our opponents are telling Caren Merrick to release her NRA questionnaire, or they shall taunt her a second time. You can see why they areÂ doing anything they can to turn the pressure up, because the polling in this district. But gun control is just not an issue that energizes people to get to the polls, no matter how much our opponents want to make it appear to work that way. They can get a lot of attention from a sympathetic media, but when it comes to putting people in the voting booth, they come up empty. Nonetheless, the Democrats are trying to scare voters on social issues in an election that looks increasingly likely to hinge on economic issues.

I guess after tomorrow we’ll see how things go. If you’re a gun owner in Northern Virginia, I’d go see whether Caren Merrick, or any of the other GOP Senate candidates need any help on election day tomorrow. This is going to be an important election for gun owners. Not only is lowering Virginia’s Brady score at stake, but so is giving Bloomberg a boost if he’s able to eke out some victories, and the Democrats are able to retain control of the Virginia Senate.

UPDATE from Bitter: I realize that some folks are confused by this post. Merrick is rated A- and running against an F-rated opponent. Winning in the state Senate is particularly important for gun owners, according to previous reports we’ve heard from Dave Adams with the VSSA. Anti-gunners have been harassing volunteers for this candidate because they claim she hasn’t released her NRA questionnaire to them in order to use to attack her.