June 2012 – Page 6 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Hating on Pennsylvania Republicans

I really wish Democrats in my area were more aligned with me on anything remotely fiscal or on the right to bear arms. I need an alternative that’s serious about issues and not running for fun on a third party ticket. So much that’s wrong with the GOP in this area of Pennsylvania is represented by what has recently been uncovered about recent ethics violations, some by a Republican former lawmaker from this region as he heads up a government monopoly agency.

We’ve got favors in exchange for business opportunities and crony capitalism:

For six months beginning last summer, the report said, a top LCB aide devoted part of her time to searching for jobs for Conti’s brother and daughter. It was not clear from the report who had directed the aide to do this.

But earlier this year, the report said, Conti e-mailed Starr, recommending that the famed restaurateur hire his daughter.

In the same e-mail, Conti wrote: “On the business front, I would love to revisit the opportunity for a wine boutique in one of your future properties. Team PLCB could be [a] dependable partner. . . . And thank you for reading the info from a proud father in regards to his daughter . . . .”

Weeks later, Conti’s daughter was hired as an executive assistant for Starr Restaurants Catering Group, the report says.

We’ve got sponsorship gifts for the spouses organized by the bureaucrats:

The report concluded that Stapleton, the onetime LCB chairman, accepted several gifts from an LCB vendor, North Wales-based Capital Wine & Spirits.

The gifts included about $1,700 worth of alcohol for an event at the Hotel Hershey last year that Stapleton and his ex-wife organized – the annual Keystone Weekend, billed as a forum for business, civic, sports, and entertainment leaders to exchange ideas on current issues.

Stapleton solicited the alcohol and the LCB vendor donated 60 bottles, the report said. It quoted an e-mail sent to him last Sept. 12 by a Capital executive: “The wine and spirits for Keystone weekend is taken care of.”

The report said another LCB vendor, Majestic Wine & Spirits, lined up a celebrity chef for the same event.

We’ve got pay-offs with free tickets to major sporting events with companies seeking business deals with the agency:

It says one LCB vendor secured a round of golf with a pro for Stapleton during a tournament at Aronimink – and sent two employees to serve as Stapleton’s caddies.
…
Conti, according to the report, frequently attended Philadelphia-area sporting events last summer.

He and his wife, Molli, were described as guests of the Philadelphia Union during one of its soccer games last June – at a time when the team was trying to conduct business with the LCB. Weeks later, the Union invited Conti again, but Short, the LCB marketing director, ended up going in his place, the report said.

Conti, a former Republican state senator from Bucks County, was described as often attending Phillies games as a guest of LCB vendors. Investigators “found no evidence that Conti or his family members paid for the tickets.”

The problem in this is that it’s not business partners doing something nice for each other. The article points out that it’s a crime for these executives to accept gifts, and the state ethics laws also prohibit the employees from using their position to benefit their family members. Interestingly, this wasn’t even a thorough investigation because the investigators couldn’t interview staff or vendors. They relied solely on what the executives were admitting to in official emails.

Of course, members of the GOP in other parts of the state are largely responsible for stalling the privatization bills that would get the state out of the business of selling liquor so that these politicians-turned-bureaucrats wouldn’t even be in a position to use their offices to demand favors and jobs in exchange for business opportunities at taxpayer expense.

I know that in this area, the Republicans brag about not being too socially conservative. That’s fine, but not just because it’s more in line with my views, but because this area has a large population of NY and NJ transplants who aren’t socially conservative either. Then they also brag about not being fiscal conservatives, either. Everything the GOP leaders here say in public are very much about just staying in control as opposed to actually promoting good government or even ideas. It’s very frustrating because they don’t give me a single reason to vote for them as opposed to voting against the other guy in the race. We have a few exceptions here and there, but not many.

Ending Checks and Balances

Based on the comments of the President and a Democratic Congressman, I sometimes wonder if a new platform for the Democratic Party isn’t going to be that the Supreme Court can no longer serve as a check on the Executive and Legislative branches. This morning, Rep. Gerry Connolly said:

â€œItâ€™s not really up to the Supreme Court to second-guess the legitimate decision made by the elected representatives of the people, and if people want to change that law, they can do so by changing the legislators,â€ he said.

Of course, in April, Obama made comments that caused him trouble by challenging the authority of the Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by Congress and supported by the President.

“For years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or the lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” he said at a news conference.
…
Mr. Obama said the court would take an “unprecedented, extraordinary step” if it overturns the law because it was passed by “a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

To continue in the over-the-top rhetoric from Connolly, he also added this statement on just how terrible opposition to the individual mandate would be:

Connolly said a ruling against the mandate would rank with the courtâ€™s worst decisions in its history. He compared the potential opinion with those now considered to be the Supreme Courtâ€™s biggest mistakes: Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the â€œseparate but equalâ€ doctrine, and Dred Scott v. Sandford, which said that people brought to the United States as slaves are not U.S. citizens with rights.

It almost comes off as saying that those opposed to the individual mandate are like people who support racism and slavery. Another decision by the Court that Connolly cites as a problem a case he refuses to name, but rather prefers to call “the very novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, overturning D.C.â€™s gun control laws.” Though that isn’t quite as evil a case as the challenge to healthcare. He just considers that to be an example of extreme partisanship on the part of conservatives on the Court.

Dogs for Obama!

If your dog votes for Obama, he won’t eat it.

Intervening in Robberies

Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s a good idea. This guy in Texas tried to get out of the store, but found the doors locked. Once locked in, he drew and started a gunfight with the robbers, accidentally killing the clerk with a stray bullet.Â Without knowing the specific circumstances, I can’t speak on whether this was an unwise action or not. If the robbers saw his attempt to leave and attempted to claim physical control over him, he might not have had much of a choice. I would not allow an armed robber to exercise physical control over me if I were armed. A wise move might have been hiding in the aisles and forcing the robbers to come looking for you, which would distract their attention away from the clerk and give you an opportunity to engage without the clerk being in the line-of-fire. Even locked in a store, if the robbers are not trying to exercise physical control over you, I think the best option is to hunker down, call 911 if you can, and let things go down. Chances are the robbers are taking the till and running, and you don’t owe any store clerk what you’ll go through if you have to shoot someone.

Permit Numbers: Some Devil’s Advocacy

So it’s pretty clear now that the number of people getting carry permits is going upÂ (via SayUncle). I got some wicked deja vu when I started writing what I wanted to write about this subject, and sure enough I already did, and fairly recently too. So even if 99.95% of concealed carry permit holders are folks with good judgement, and can be counted on to be responsible, the overall number of morons with permits are going to go up, and those incidents are very likely to end up as media stories, and used by our opponents as examples of why no one should be permitted to carry.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that our opponents might have a better argument convincing people that society is safe enough that carrying just isn’t worth the hassle, rather than making the argument that the law must forbid nearly everyone from this behavior for their own good. But I don’t think the idea of gentle persuasion has ever entered their thoughts.

Still Winning

The Ohio House passes a major concealed carry bill:

It also would allow concealed-carry permits issued by other states to be automatically recognized in Ohio, and eliminate a prohibition on having a loaded magazine in a vehicle with a firearm.

I thought our opponents had stopped the evil “gun lobby” in its tracks. They were turning things around, and were in the process of creating a new and rejuvenated movement. The pendulum was swinging back. We were going to hear them roar.

The Rise of the Anti-Gun Blog

SayUncle links to a sputtering of one of the anti-gun blogs. Up until about a year ago, there wasn’t any such thing as this phenomena, but after Media Matters encouraged (possibly paid?) people to write about the issue, there have been a few. I always thought it would make things more interesting in the gun blog community if there was more anti-gun bloggers around challenging us, and helping to keep the conversation interesting. Boy was I wrong.

I’ve yet to see an anti-gun blog out there yet that’s not just spewing nasty attacks, arguing against positions none of us hold, or just rambling on incoherently at great length. This is still a one sided conversation. They have turned out to be masters of only the straw man.

FDA Cracking Down on Cigars

One big problem I have with the Obama Administration, and really the Bush Administration before it, was that the bureaucrats have just gotten out of control. Anyone know if Obama still sneaks out of the oval office for smoke breaks? The dangers of tobacco at this point are well known. This is just bureaucrats trying to expand their little fiefdoms. Conservatives and libertarians often rag on the commerce clause as where we really went off the rails. I disagree. I think the non-delegation doctrineÂ being loosely interpreted has caused far more problems. If we want warning labels, or other ridiculous requirements for cigars, Congress should pass a law. As it is, the Courts have let Congress delegate a substantial, too substantial in my opinion, portion of its lawmaking power to the Executive Branch. I think this is far more dangerous than the expansion of the commerce power, and it’s anti-democratic to boot.

And Where Did He Get That Idea From?

A Texas man ends up rightfully convicted of murder by a jury of his peers after asserting self-defense. Apparently the man in the case had some wild-eyed misconceptions about self-defense:

One neighbor testified that Rodriguez, who had a concealed handgun license, bragged about his guns and that he told her a person could avoid prosecution in a shooting by telling authorities you were in fear of your life and were standing your ground and defending yourself.

And where would he have gotten that idea? It certainly wasn’t in his CHL training. It certainly wasn’t from any of us, who are up front and honest about what self-defense actually is, and make an attempt at educating the public about it. No, he got that idea from the media, who got that idea from our opponents.

I’m not kidding here. Their misleading and deceptive characterization of self-defense laws, and the media’s willingness to help spread their dangerous meme throughout the land, and their own attempts to spread it, is at least partly responsible for this horrible incident. This guy believed their bull, and now one person is dead, and he’s rightfully in prison for the murder. When you lie about self-defense laws, when you mischaracterize them, suggesting that all anyone has to do is claim they were scared, you run the risk that some morons out there might actually believe it. We told you this was dangerous. We told you this would happen, and you did not believe us. Well, here it is. No doubt they will find it easy to wash the blood off their hands, cup them back over their mouths, and continue trying to convince the public the NRA has made it possible to shoot someone if you’re scared, no questions asked. At least until the next moron actually believes them.

A Brilliant Maneuver on Microstamping

The CalGuns guys have prevented microstamping from taking effect in California, by renewing the patent on it. The California law requires that the technology be unencumbered by patent before it goes into effect, and the patent was about to lapse. From the Paper of Making Up the Record:

â€œIt was a lot cheaper to keep the patent in force than to litigate over the issues,â€ said Gene Hoffman, the chairman of the foundation, adding that he believed the law amounted to a gun ban in California.

It even made Slashdot. Hats off to the brains behind the CalGuns Foundation for this. Gene is likely correct it would have amounted to a gun ban in California, since it’s unlikely most smaller gun makers would pay for the technology and assembly line changes just to make a gun for the California market. This would have a chilling effect on Second Amendment rights for Californians.