April 2012 – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

PolitiFact Florida on Brady Campaign

Shocker, PolitiFact finds the Bradys are full of shit. If this was true, I would have renewed my Florida permit. As it is, my local PD fingerprints only a few days a week and not during convenient hours. My friend Jason also got his Florida CWL in the same class I got mine, and when he went to renew, his local PD refused to take the prints because it was for a Florida CWL. Some digging, and we find during the anti-gun Rendell Administration, the State Police put out an advisory to local PDs not to fingerprint people for Florida licenses.

This is also despite the fact that both Jason and I have PA LTCs, and aren’t exploiting what our opponents misleadingly label as a “loophole.” Since my dad moved out of Delaware, I don’t really get that much use from the reciprocity anyway, so I never took this issue back up.

What Your Carry Gun Says About You

From When the Balloon Goes Up. My favorite is his description of what the Walther PPK says about you:

Walther PPKÂ â€“ I donâ€™t know anything about guns but the James Bond movies were awesome. I think Sean Connery was the best, Pierce was ok and Daniel Craig was a mistake. Â I canâ€™t believe that they went away from the Aston Martinâ€¦ There is no way a British spy would drive a German car. Oh yeah, we were talking about guns. This one is a .32 just like he carried.

I don’t own a PPK, but both the guns I do own for carry are on there.

Gun Control Groups on CoBIS

Crickets is the sound after repeal. It strikes me that we have the gun control groups in the same position they had us in during the 80s and 90s, where we couldn’t count on Republicans to really help us out much. Actually, it’s probably worse, because I think many Democrats who were once staunch allies are abandoning the cause. It’s not surprising to me they don’t have much to say on this process. Spamming people on Twitter is probably more rewarding anyway.

Next In Line for the CNC Mill

You may recognize the platform. Jason informs me that there’s still a lot of work to be done, as everything is not fitting together all that nicely at the moment. The first attempt was sacrificed to the gods of gravity, and a loose fitting. I guess it’s a good thing aluminum is fairly recyclable, and 1911s aren’t made out of the bones of endangered species, or something. Quite a lot of aluminum has been gone through on these projects that’s been sacrificed to FAIL. But he’ll have a nice collection of homemade guns when all is said and done, for sure.

For something non-gun Jason was machining, he made a time lapse video to show the progress. I thought that would be neat to do with a gun too, so I asked him. Below you’ll find the results of that:

I believe this is a frame that bolts together, which makes it easier to do on the mill.

Debunking the Misinformation

Reason magazine has been doing a pretty good job on the Zimmerman case, as is seen here where they go over three things that people think they know about the case, but don’t.

Thoughts and Prayers for Texas Folks

Big tornados ripped through yesterday. A bit worried that the last thing we heard from Traction Control in Arlington was “Rain, hail and thunder have just started.” We sincerely hope any readers in the area made it through things unscathed.

That’s one thing I like about living here, is that we’re not too crazy on natural disasters. We might get blizzards sometimes, and the occasional remnants of a hurricane that brings torrential downpours, but nothing life threatening. Just about every other place I’d consider living has something. Texas? Hurricanes and Tornadoes. Florida? Hurricanes. Washington State? Earthquakes and the occasional volcano. Colorado? Hmm. Colorado might be fairly natural disaster free in most of the places that have tech jobs. Sure blizzards, but I’m used to that.

Zimmerman Case Roundup

Getting tired of this case yet? I sure am. But it’s all that’s in the media, and it’s the best shot our opponents in the gun prohibition movement have had to return to relevance in years. Unfortunately for them, I think this case jumped the shark. Miguel notes the slowly disappearing political memes. Over at Just One Minute, it turns out the audio forensics expert offered up by the media is, in fact, no such thing. Turns out plenty of other experts agree that the comparison just isn’t valid. I’m not surprised to hear this, because the story of the audio analysis set off my bullshit alarm as soon as I read it, but not being an expert in the field, I was reluctant to come out guns blazing on it.

Also, ABC now has an “enhanced” video that shows Zimmerman’s injuries, which is several lacerations to the back of the head. I don’t think the guy needs to be bleeding out all over the place. I’ve had my bell rung hard enough in my life without drawing blood to know you can still get a concussion without cutting the scalp. Also in that article:

In a letter to U.S. Department of Justice officials, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton allege that State Attorney Norm Wolfinger met with the Sanford police chief within hours of the teen’s death and that together they overruled a detective’s recommendation that Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter. The letter claims a lead investigator filed an affidavit stating that he didn’t find Zimmerman’s story credible.

Wolfinger called the allegations “lies” and said no meeting took place.

“I’m outraged by the outright lies contained in the letter,” Wolfinger said in a statement. “I encourage the Justice Department to investigate and document that no such meeting or communication occurred.”

It’s been rather amazing how much of what the family has said in public have turned out to be outright fabrications. The family has very little credibility left with me at this point, especially since I was originally quite sympathetic to the idea of taking the case to a grand jury to evaluate the evidence. I still think that’s the right thing to do in this case, but my sympathy for the family diminishes with every fabrication. I tend to give grieving families the benefit of doubt, but I don’t like being outright lied to.Â The lawyer over at Crayfisher notes:

On another topic, I have seen a number of posts bemoaning how the â€œwingnutsâ€ are smearing Tayvon Martin and defending his killer. According to these people anyone who casts doubt on Zimmermanâ€™s guilt must be a wingnut.

Since when is defending accused criminals a wingnut activity?

This has been driving me bonkers too, that the left has essentially taken the position that Zimmerman is guilty before his case has even gone before a jury. I think blowhards like Sharpton would be happy to lynch Zimmerman in the media if it means Sharpton gets to be relevant again. I believe the reason the NAACP has been, comparatively speaking, the voice of reason here is they probably understand that if this case blows up in a big way, it’ll hurt Obama. Rightly or wrongly, I think a lot of Americans viewed Obama as an opportunity to move beyond the politics of race. This case is not only bringing that back to the forefront, it has the potential to set race relations back decades. For people like Sharpton, that translates into increased relevance, but I don’t think that’s a good thing for this country.

Duty to Retreat, Another Way of Thinking About It

Eugene Volokh takes a look at a case where duty to retreat did play into a case. In this case, the man who failed to retreat from someone threatening his life got 18-20 years in prison. The man was also black:

Again, the question was: Did the victimâ€™s â€œIâ€™m going to stab you n[—–]â€ require defendant to give up the right to be where he was, or else be legally stripped of the right to defend himself with deadly force if he stayed? (I infer that he was on a sidewalk or a place thatâ€™s similarly open to the public, and not on the threatenerâ€™s property, or else the court would have noted that […)]

Bracketed part I edited, as to avoid tripping anyone’s keyword filters and for brevity. Read the whole thing. There have been a lot of accusations from blowhards like Sharpton that the Florida law is a license for white people to kill black people, when in reality the law will probably protect more blacks than whites, simply due to the fact that blacks live in areas where the need to defend oneself tends to be more acute. In this case, Mr. Benoit ended up in prison. Our opponents say these cases don’t exist, but they do. It just often happens to people who don’t have the money to hire PR firms to make their cases to the public.

U.S. Reps Propose Bill of Attainder

John Richardson reports on several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who are proffering what looks to me like a Bill of Attainder, which targets George Zimmerman by name. Granted, this is merely a resolution, rather than a law that enacts punishment, so it could arguably not be considered one as a matter of law. But certainly, condemning someone by name insults the spirit of the constitutional provision prohibiting them.

Who Are Chicago’s Gun Laws Disarming?

To the credit of the authorities, they didn’t pursue gun charges, but the 81-year old man who had his firearm seized after defending his home says he’ll just get another one. They note the 81-year old had a theft charge 22 years ago, but that doesn’t sound like a disabling offense. He had a weapons charge in 1994, but given that Chicago’s laws are unjust, that doesn’t mean anything to me.