Year: 2011
Daily Caller’s Guide
The Daily Caller is “launching a multi-part guide for readers not entirely up to snuff.” I’m disappointed in one aspect of the article, because the media keeps ignoring the elephant in the room when it comes to the ban on magazines, which is the fact that police are exempted from it. They don’t bother asking why police are exempted from the magazine ban if “they’re for hunting people.” The police don’t hunt people, do they? You can’t declare the magazine ban to be common sense until you explain why the police need to shoot as many people as fast as possible. It seems to be common sense that the police carry guns to protect themselves from the criminal element, those same criminals that prey on the law abiding. So it stands to reason if police need magazines that hold more than ten rounds ordinary people do as well.
I am happy, however, they were willing to ask Bloomberg some difficult questions, which he doesn’t seem to appreciate:
When TheDC asked Mayor Bloomberg how the expanded checks were supposed to prevent those “already-prohibited dangerous persons†from continuing to be “dangerous persons,†he became a little testy. Others in the crowd turned their head when the question — if 99.9 percent of gun owners are “law-abiding†citizens already following the current legal measures, how will increased measures stop the one percent of bad guys who already engage in illegal activities in the first place? — was asked.
You have to be amazed at how much our opponents are used to the press not doing their jobs in questioning their agenda. I hope to see more of this. But I’d like it if journalists took a closer look at some of the proposals. You can’t just go on what the gun control folks say. They are deceitful, and will mislead people, especially journalists. Don’t trust, and verify, verify, verify.
Reciprocity for Oregon
It’s about time. Can we fix Maine too? Though, at least it’s not hard to get a Maine license if you’re out of state.
Mexican Ambassador Resigns
Apparently the gunwalker scandal was the straw the broke the camel’s back. I note that Pascual is doing his best Baghdad Bob impersonation in the photo there.
Shouldn’t This Mean Less Guns Flowing to Mexico?
“Obama refuses to act on gun flow into Mexico.” Given how they’ve chosen to act to date, I would think this should accomplish quite a lot to reduce trafficking.
What Righthaven Has Accomplished
Less protection for newspapers under the copyright laws. I’m sure this isn’t what they were intending.
Another View on the Florida Doctor Bill
We Can Leave the Brady Campaign Alone Now
I’m absolutely baffled right now. The Brady Campaign appears to be going in circles with their messaging strategy surrounding this non-White House non-beer summit.
Yesterday, they were highlighting how horrible the NRA is for not participating and reminding their followers that the NRA was the only party the media was talking about coming to the table for a policy discussion. Today’s post seemingly takes the other strategy of highlighting their participation as though it meant more than the NRA’s attendance.
The Brady-written post sounds like they are taking a serious leadership role in advancing policy. It describes the meeting as though Paul put out the plans for reform and the administration just wondered how to make it happen.
I began the discussion by listing basic measures that the Brady Campaign, and others, felt could make a difference. The list included: a strong background check system, with good and complete records of dangerous and irresponsible people, applicable to all commercial gun sales; more tools for law enforcement to stop trafficking in illegal guns; increasing the number and type of military-style weapons, including “assault clips,†that should not be readily available to civilians, like machine-guns and fully automatic weapons. Administration officials then asked questions.
But the Paul Helmke quote to another outlet sounds like they weren’t even sure what was going to come out of the non-summit and that the gun control groups were the ones trying to figure out just what they can possibly take from the debate.
“We asked a lot of questions, and they indicated they don’t have any particular policies that they’re pushing or any particular legislation that they’re pushing, right now they’re basically out gathering pieces of information,” Helmke said.
More importantly, they are publicly refuted on most of the policy issues Paul named in today’s official Brady post.
The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reported that administration officials are exploring potential changes to gun laws which can be secured through executive action alone.
The outside sources also highlight that the policies officials were willing to consider were focused on data-sharing and background checks, not gun or magazine bans.
I really don’t understand what the Brady message is in all of this. The posts from their internal staff seem to have conflicting key messages, and their own statements to outside media don’t match what’s coming from the rest of the Brady communications efforts. At the rate they are contradicting themselves, we can just sit back and enjoy the show.
P.S. Anyone else amused by Helmke’s measure of success being that he met with staffers at an agency for a whooping 90 minutes? Even the cop from Cambridge got 40 minutes at the White House and a beer with the President himself.
Brady Campaign Reports on White House Meeting
On Tuesday, I attended a meeting at the U.S. Department of Justice with representatives from the White House, the Vice-President’s office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the FBI, and others from the Obama Administration, along with leaders from the gun violence prevention movement, to discuss how to reach the goals outlined in the President’s statement. Officials from the Administration indicated that this was the first of what they hoped would be a series of discussions. They said they had not settled on, or excluded, any relevant proposals.
The question in my mind is whether the Administration intends to keep this “series of discussions” going right on through the 2012 elections, or whether he’s going to be foolish enough to get behind specific Brady proposals before then. Helmke noted that the length of the meeting (90 minutes) and the number of White House officials at the meeting “signaled to me that the President is serious.” We’ll see.
Quality Control, It’s Not Hard
Tasty Baking Company, which makes Tastykakes, is in serious financial trouble. They essentially face going out of business within the next few months, largely due to their management’s poor decision to stay in Philadelphia, and build a “green” bakery, which has not worked out very well for the company, even with a massive infusion of my tax dollars to save green jobs or some crap like that.
Just about every store around here has been having specials on Tastykakes, so we’ve been buying every once in a while. If my tax dollars are going to subsidize them, I might as well eat them. First thing I noticed they are cutting corners on quality control from when I was a kid. A little defect here, and little defect there, I can deal with. No longer. Today was the last straw.
For those of you who grew up or have lived in the Philadelphia area any length of time, you will be able to relate to my extreme angst that Tasty Baking Company sold me a Butterscotch Krimpet with one of the Krimpet’s only partially covered with butterscotch. Anyone growing up having to split a package of Krimpets with their sibling understands the kind of war this will bring about. Villages have been burned over less. We need a UN resolution that “authorizes all necessary means” to ensure this won’t happen again. Seriously Tasty Baking, if you’re going to take my tax dollars, don’t you dare short me on butterscotch!