2011 – Page 91 – Shall Not Be Questioned

We’re Talking Hull Crushing Depths Here

Our favorite Washington Post reporter, Sari Horwitz, is at it again helping the Democrats and the Administration blame our gun laws for operation Fast and Furious:

Titled â€œOutgunned,â€ the 26-page report recommends stronger penalties for â€œstraw purchasersâ€ who illegally buy guns for others and a reporting requirement for multiple purchases of long guns, such as AK-47s. Cummings will hold a forum on the report Thursday on Capitol Hill.

It’s really puzzled me how multiple long-gun reporting would have helped this situation, given that ATF knew about these sales, because they were reported by dealers, and told the dealers to process them anyway. In short, even given what they knew about, they couldn’t mount a competent enforcement operation.

And increasing penalties against straw purchasing? How is that going to help when ATF is facilitating straw purchasing? The penalty for straw purchasing is ten years in prison. How exactly is that toothless? Well, it’s pretty clear why:

Larry Alt, a lawyer and senior ATF field agent, testified that â€œwe donâ€™t get traction with the U.S. attorneyâ€™s office. They donâ€™t follow through. They donâ€™t want to prosecute cases.â€

That’s Obama’s justice department, folks. Get a gun control supporting administration and suddenly prosecutions under gun laws fall… for people who are actually criminals.

Agents also said their efforts to combat the cartels would be strengthened with a federal statute criminalizing gun trafficking.

Isn’t gun trafficking already illegal? And pardon me if I’m not worried such a law is going to make it difficult for people like you and me to “traffic” firearms across state lines for the purpose of recreation and competition.

Sari Horwitz chooses to help deflect blame on to our gun laws because like many of our opponents, the only gun violence they really care about is that which can be used to advocate for new controls.

UPDATE: John Richardson notes that the report in question was available on the WaPo web site before it was available on .gov servers. More evidence the WaPo is just a mouthpiece.

Beware of Greeks Bearing Debt

Looks like another financial crisis has been averted for now, but I share SayUncle’s puzzlement about how Greeks Grok economic principles. Spend more money than you take in, eventually you run out of other people’s money. It’s still hard for me to understand why the European Project is worth British and German bankers having to continuously bail out the fiscal basket cases of Europe. At least the British were smart enough to stay out of the monetary union, but it’s hard to imagine the Germans are going to keep agreeing to bail out other members of the Eurozone.

Not Sure How You Miss This

Apparently a body was found in the water at a public swimming pool. This is not unusual, given that drownings happen in pools all the time. What is unusual, and almost unbelievable, is that the body was in there for several days. Apparently while the pool was open:

Police say lifeguards were on duty and people were swimming in the Veterans Memorial pool at Lafayette Park Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and it appears no one noticed the dead body.

I spent a lot of time at the local public pool as a kid, and I’m not sure how, even playing a game of Marco Polo, you’d miss a stiff floating next to you. What about the lifeguards? OK… well, even if your lifeguard is busy smoking dope or flirting with girls, you have a pool man who cleans the pool right? Right?

As of this hour, the entire staff of the Veteran’s Memorial Swimming Pool in Fall River has been placed on administrative leave.

I’d call that a start.

Attempt on WaPo Tank Diving Record

The Brady’s seem to be hot on the Washington Post’s trail to see who can get the deepest in the tank for the Administration. An Administration, I would point out, the Brady’s haven’t liked very much. Paul Helmke notes:

Rep. Issa and others can point fingers at the ATF for mounting a failed mission, but it is Congress that prevents the ATF from getting an annual inventory from dealers on guns sales to address the problem of guns “disappearing” from gun shops with no record of sales. That stops the agency from quickly shutting down corrupt shops.

Except this isn’t about corrupt shops, and none of those advocated policies would have done anything to reduce the damage done by Fast and Furious. Remember, ATF leadership was encouraging straw sales, sales suspicious enough to make the dealers call ATF to report them. ATF told the dealers to proceed, apparently without much real effort to track those firearms or arrest the buyers. There’s no policy prescription in Brady’s current formulary that would have done anything to stop a government agency from deliberately letting guns walk, in the hands of criminals.

That the Brady Campaign would continue to make excuses and deflect on this issue tells me gun violence is not their real concern. Their only interest in gun violence is to the extent that hobby horse can be ridden to justify more restrictions on the Second Amendment.

Bloomberg Buying Ads

As we’ve said, there’s not way to buy a fully automatic assault rifle at a gun show without a background check, but that’s not stopping Bloomberg from buying ad time to try to drum up support for denying constitutional rights with no due process by scare mongering among the public.

This is the kind of propaganda the Brady folks, nor other gun control groups, have the funding for anymore, which shows that MAIG and Bloomberg are really the last organization remaining credible threat to the Second Amendment.

Chest Beating by the Brady Campaign

The Brady folks would love to have you believe they are winning the Second Amendment battle. To help spread this meme around, Mother Jones is clearly willing and able to lend a hand. My belief is this meme is aimed at potential donors. Brady doesn’t want donors to believe they are on the losing side of history, because who wants to fork over large sums of money to a group who’s cause is going nowhere?

But the Brady folks are making the mistake of believing that the number of battles you win or lose determines who wins the war. Anyone who knows anything about the history of this country knows that’s not the determining factor; it’s which battles you win or lose. Mother Jones notes:

The gun group’s vice president, Wayne LaPierre, said at the time that theÂ Heller ruling would be “the opening salvo in a step-by-step process” to kill off most of the nation’s gun control laws.

Well, three years later, gun control is alive and well despite more than 400 legal challenges based onÂ Heller,Â according to a new report (PDF) by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Only a fool would believe that Heller meant we’d have gun control on the ropes in three years. They also make the mistake of surmising our movement’s next step, believing we’ve already taken many of them. That next step was eliminating the gun ban in Chicago, and we were successful at achieving that. Now the next step would seem to be getting recognition of some form of right-to-carry outside of the home — the “bear” part of “keep and bear arms”.

The Brady’s here are, to put this in another context, noting that General Washington is losing more battles than he’s winning. That might be literally true, but that’s not how wars are fought and won. That’s now how a litigative strategy is fought and won either. There will be many many cases that are lost, especially in lower level courts, but as long as we win the important ones, we’ll achieve robust legal protections for the Second Amendment.

Ironically, the best hope the Brady folks can hope for is a second term for Barack Obama, where we’ll all be biting our fingernails praying for the health of Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy and Scalia. If Obama gets to pick any of their replacements, there is a good chance the Second Amendment will be judicially erased from the constitution.

I Feel Safer Already

EPIC has discovered through FOIA requests:

On June 24, 2011, EPIC released documents obtained from DHS as a result of EPIC’s lawsuit.

The disclosed documents include agency emails, radiation studies, memoranda of agreement concerning radiation testing programs, and results of some radiation tests.

The documents raise new questions concerning the radiation risks posed by the TSA full body scanner program. The records demonstrate:

TSA employees have identified cancer clusters allegedly linked to radiation exposure while operating body scanners and other screening technology. However, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters – safety devices that would warn of radiation exposure.

The DHS has publicly mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST “affirmed the safety” of full body scanners. NIST stated that the Institute did not, in fact, test full body scanners for safety, and that the Institute does not do product testing.

A Johns Hopkins University study revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the â€œGeneral Public Dose Limit.â€

A NIST study warns airport screeners to avoid standing next to full body scanners.

I’m usually rather skeptical of public health fear mongering, but this is a case where no one asked people whether they wanted to take screening this far. TSA just did it, and screw you if you don’t agree. Now we know there’s really been no testing on back scatter devices, and that NIST warned workers no to stand next to them.

Now granted, they would be getting some dose throughout the day, whereas you’ll just get it once, but how much leaks? And what’s the dose for the person in it? How do we know the dose being delivered is within specifications?

I don’t think we do. I don’t think TSA does.

Speculation Melson Won’t Fall on His Sword

From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

I doubt that Melson would have had direct contact with Napolitano on this kind of clandestine effort, though.Â That seems to be much less likely than Melson having something on Holder.Â If (a veryÂ big â€œifâ€) Melson can show that Holder lied to Congress about what he knew and when he knew it â€” the old Watergate question â€” then Holder will have no choice but to resign or face impeachment.Â In fact, it hardly seems worth the effort for Melson to hold out on a resignation just to get Breuer.

Read the whole thing. It’ll be important to implicate higher ups, because otherwise the position of the Administration is going to be that we need Andrew Traver more than ever. The Administration has to take some bruises over this, or I think we’re likely dealing with Traver at some point, probably as a recess appointment.

Castle Doctrine Signed by Corbett

It’s a done deal folks. The law will take effect 60 days from now. Kudos to everyone who worked hard on this. I’d like particularly to thank Rep. Scott Perry and State Senator Richard Alloway. We wouldn’t have gotten here if not for their efforts.

From left to right, Senator Alloway, Governor Corbett, Senator Rich Kasunic, and behind them is John Hohenwarter, NRA’s lobbyist for PA.

GOP House Castle Doctrine sponsors with Governor Corbett. Seated at the table on the right is Rep. Scott Perry, and Rep. Daryl Metcalfe to the left.

See these comments by the House and Senate sponsors.

UPDATE from Bitter: Everyone wants to celebrate Castle Doctrine! Here’s yet another picture posted by lawmakers proud to have been part of passing the Castle Doctrine bill. I’m not sure what group this is, as the only folks I recognize are Gov. Corbett, John Hohenwarter, and Rep. Stephen Bloom, a freshman Republican in the House.

Not-Quite-Gun Porn

I’ve had a surprising number of comments and emails about the shiny pretty gun jewelry and the cool vintage gun-related gear that I’ve found available for sale lately. So I thought I’d start a semi-regular feature of “Not-Quite-Gun Porn.” See, it’s not really guns, but it will be things mostly of interest to gun people. Vintage books, memorabilia, jewelry, and things that make me say, “what the hell?”

If you end up purchasing anything, leave a comment. It will be good to know what kinds of things inspire you.