The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
From Miguel, who kindly translated some parts of their law from Spanish:
If you own a restaurant where alcohol is served, you must force your clientele to be searched & probed before going in. So basically you have to go through a TSA screening every time you go wanna eat something or choose a restaurant that does not sell alcohol which in Venezuela, other than fast food places, there are very few.
Sounds like the kind of common sense approach to gun laws that our opponents believe in.
Frank W. James on the mass shootings:
Combining the two tragedies in Aurora, Colo., and Oak Creek, Wis., into a single question about gun control is tantamount to asking if we should make it harder for consumers to get the make and model of the automobile driven by a drunken driver after he crossed the center line and killed a family of four.
Yep. In most other contexts I think your average person would think the gun control crowd’s prescription was sheer madness and hysteria. But we treat guns differently. Probably because the mentality that lead to thinking like this is still alive and well in the public mind.
All I keep reading in the conservative media is how McCain has made a bold choice, and how the veep pick is just totally reshaping the whole race. It’s a different dynamic! A game changer! It’s not just McCain now, it’s a ticket! Lines around the corner to see the newly selected Veep! We’ll have this election in the bag!
Wait, did I say McCain? I meant Romney. I guess a bit too much deja-vu today.
For the past several weeks, it’s just been wall-to-wall hysteria in the media about the need for more gun control. If my Google Alerts are any indication, the media is predictably moving on to other topics that generate more eyeballs. Move along. Nothing to see here. At least until the next sensationalist story comes along. I obviously have not covered much of the hysteria. It’s not changing any minds anyway.
I think we may have come to a stability in terms of public opinion on the gun issue, where we’ve pretty much convinced a majority that gun laws are not the solution to social ills. This is a good place to be, but we still need to do more. How? The Second Amendment, that you have some, if perhaps ill-defined in the public mind, right to own a firearm for self-defense, is now greater than an 80% issue. That you have a right to a handgun is approaching an 80% issue. I’d like to get the need for new gun laws to an 80% issue as well, and increases the number of folks who think maybe we ought to repeal a few. But how?
I suspect we’ve reached a stability because we’re not able to penetrate into the cities very effectively. New York and its entire metropolitan area is gun hostile. That’s close to 20 million people right there we can’t effectively reach. There’s another 13 million in the Los Angeles Metro area, and 10 million in the Chicago metro area. That’s 43 million people, the vast majority have no exposure to firearms, shooting, or hunting, and more importantly, 43 million people who are extremely unlikely to even know someone who does these things. If you total up all the hostile metro areas in this country, 5 million in the Boston area, 5 million in the bay area, 5 million in the San Bernardino area, and 3 million in San Diego, you’re starting to talk about a sizable chunk of public opinion.
I’ve always thought the fight in the Courts was important, but now I’m becoming convinced it’s of the utmost importance. If we’ve truly reaching a stability on the gun issue, the only way we’re going to make any further significant strides is to be able to re-establish a healthy shooting culture in these metro areas where it’s been extinguished because the anti-gunners control those legislatures or city councils. I also think it’s going to become more important for Congress to exercise it’s Section 5 powers under the 14th Amendment to eliminate state and local outliers in terms of gun laws. In fact, this is probably safer option than the states. If we can do that, I think you’ll see public opinion on this issue swing quite rapidly in our direction. If we can get most of the basic concepts of gun rights to 80% issues, most politicians won’t dare even speak the word gun control, no matter what the media and our hysterical opponents say.
Fifty-three percent of Coloradans oppose tougher gun laws. But the other side is building momentum. We’re finished. Through. Just ask them. Our day in the sun is over. The time for debate is over. They are coming for our gun rights.
I’ve gone to the L.L. Bean store in Allentown a few times, but I don’t make a regular habit of looking up a mall’s policies before going. If they want to keep people from carrying, they can conspicuously post. Some folks on the PAFOA forum dug up the policy on the Promenade Shops of Saucon Valley, where the L.L. Bean is located, and discovered  policy number 13:
“Any weapon such as guns, knives, swords, laser pointers, and any other items that can harm the customer will be confiscated and given to proper authorities.”
OK, so I can legally carry a sword in Pennsylvania, or a knife (that isn’t a switchblade), a laser pointer, and my LTC allows me to carry a firearm. So the response from the authorities is going to properly be that these items are legal to carry in Pennsylvania. In this case, can the retailer take it? I’m fairly certain the answer is no. They can ask you to leave. They can use force to make you leave if you refuse, or call the cops and let them use force on your behalf. But taking something off you is theft, plain and simple. This is s ridiculously unenforceable policy, and I’m surprised their corporate lawyers gave the nod to this. At first I wondered if this was drafted by a New York based, where pretty much anything that’s dangerous or fun is illegal, and people have a tendency to think the rest of the country is just like New York, but no, the company is based in Tennessee. WTF?
And what’s with calling a strip mall a “Lifestyle Center.” Clearly these people need a hearty dose of get the f*** over yourselves.
In Chicago, some animals think they are more equal than others, and Thirdpower throws out the idea that Jesse Jackson may be no different. Apparently Jackson Jr. is known by gun activists in Illinois to hold an FOID card and frequent a suburban Chicago gun store. He’s also in for mental health treatment. Thirdpower goes over the implications of this.
Miguel points to some gun control advocate’s hysteria about the new Red Dawn movie. I watched the trailer, and I don’t think I’d be a fan. I put this in the same “messing with my childhood” boat that George Lucas is the happy captain of these days. It’s not a movie that needed remaking.
But Red Dawn was pretty unambiguously a movie targeted at teenagers. When the movie came out, in theaters in 1984, I was ten. I probably first saw it in my early teens, when it came out on HBO. This idea that Red Dawn “is seen as pretty much a documentary by the far right,” is only true in the minds of those who think they are better than us, and have this whole right-wing gun nut thing figured out. For the rest of us, it was just another one of the many memorable and influential movies that dotted the childhoods of Gen Xers. Did it have an effect on my young, pliable mind as to the importance of an armed populace? I’d say it did, yes, and maybe that’s the concern.
Just to return the favor of a little dime store psychoanalysis for the other side, I think some part of them might be worried about a remake influencing a new generation of kids with similar sentiment as to the benefits of an armed society. I don’t think they should worry. Movies are not as influential on the younger generations as they were on us. I’d suggest that video games that feature gun play will probably have far more influence on the minds of the young than any remake of Red Dawn will, and there have already been at least one generation raised with first person shoot-em-ups.
But I find it interesting they think enough of the movie to turn their noses up and frown on a remake. As our self-appointed betters, I’m not surprised at this behavior, but it really does make you wonder who are the real “squares” in this debate.
Joshua Wander, NRA Election Volunteer Coordinator in Pittsburgh, recently posted a story on Facebook about how he was a target of a scam targeting shooting instructors. He says that he was contacted by a person claiming to be from Japan who was looking for a firearms class during an upcoming family trip to the United States. They agreed at a price of $450 for the entire family. That is not what Wander received…
He received four money orders for $875.21 each that comes to more than $3,5000. He immediately recognized what was going on.
This is an old scam, when I call to tell them that they sent too much, they will ask me to deposit the checks and send them back the difference. It will take the bank a couple of weeks to figure out that the money orders are fake!
Turns out he’s not the only shooting instructor to be targeted by this classic scam lately. I did a quick search for the topic and found another report.
A few months ago, NSCA (National Sporting Clay Association) informed instructors and clubs of fraudulent activities targeting NSCA Certified Instructors around the country. This week, we have learned of other instructors and clubs who have been targeted with similar schemes.
The instructors and clubs tell us they are being contacted through email by someone who is supposedly setting up a shooting event for a corporate group. Some of the reports say the person claims to be from England.
The person inquires about booking instruction for the group, including guns, ammunition, and other equipment, adding up to thousands of dollars. Some of the emails ask for the instructor’s bank account information so he can wire the payment to the bank, while others ask the instructor to handle some US payments on behalf of the group, with a promise to send a money order.
So, if you’re a shooting instructor with your name and contact information published, be aware of this scam. While it’s a pretty classic case of fraud that most people have heard of, it usually takes other forms like roommate or rental ads, or even purchasing a products. Even if it doesn’t cheat you out of cash, it could cheat you out of your time by having to respond to these criminals in their initial inquiries.
Ilya Somin has another excellent post illustrating the rational ignorance of most voters, most of whom seem to have no idea who Paul Ryan is:
Public ignorance about federal spending is widespread. One of the challenges that Ryan faces in selling his entitlement reform proposals is that most Americans don’t realize how large a proportion of federal spending is devoted to these programs, and therefore don’t understand that it is impossible to get the budget crisis under control without cutting back in this area.
One of the reasons I often feel we’re doomed is that the only place many of these low-information voters get their information from is the traditional media, which is so far in the tank for this Administration, it’s highly unlikely they’ll learn anything about Ryan’s ideas, other than they are bad and will destroy America.
I continue to be relatively un-optimistic about this coming election, and think Obama has a better than even chance of being re-elected.