Jacob compares the Democratic platform to the Republican platform, when it comes to guns. I pretty much agree with Jacob when it comes to the meaning of party platforms, but it’s interesting that the Democrats felt the need to blow some sunshine up the posteriors of our opponents. As SayUncle notes, to their request for an open an honest discussion about firearms, “Â We had that already and the gun control side lost.”
Month: September 2012
The Gun Went off “Accidentally”
This is apparently what people in the UK are saying when they find themselves having to shoot home invaders. An admission, apparently, that the shot was deliberate, would be an immediate invitation to be charged with murder. But apparently that doesn’t necessarily apply if you’re a copper.
Revisiting the Treaty Power?
Ilya Somin notes that Bond v. United States could possibly be going back to the Supreme Court, with a question that raises the Treaty Power of the United States. The treaty power is currently interpreted by the Courts to be an independent power that can be separately exercised from Congresses other enumerated powers, so the normal federalism limits don’t apply when it comes to a treaty. No treaty can stomp on the Bill of Rights, but beyond that the treaty power is fairly unlimited. I agree with Prof. Somin that this presents a problem:
I think the power to make treaties is best understood as a power allowing the federal government to make commitments regarding the use of its other enumerated powers, not a power that allows the federal government to legislate on whatever subjects it wants, so long as the issue is covered by a treaty. Among other things, the latter would enable the federal government to circumvent limits on the scope of its power by paying off a foreign power (e.g. – a weak client state dependent on US aid) to sign a treaty covering the subject.
I’d love to see the Supreme Court revisit this topic, and hold the treaty power can only be exercised within the scope of Congress’ other enumerated powers, but this would call a number of treaties into question, including those that affect hunting. I tend to think the Court will be cautious about a ruling that would affect current treaties.
The landmark ruling that lead to Congress’ treaty power being interpreted this way was Missouri v. Holland, which upheld the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Since then the Courts have tended to limit this power. Of course, Missouri v. Holland was decided in 1920, when the scope of the federal governments enumerated powers were considerably more constricted, so today it would probably be possible to argue that the 1918 treaty is a legitimate exercise of Congress’ enumerated powers, and is therefore still constitutional, even if the Court decides to further limit the treaty power.
War on Women
From Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt:
Massachusetts Democratic-party Chairman John Walsh, discussing GOP Sen. Scott Brown at a breakfast meeting Monday: “He’s a regular guy. I mean, he spent a couple million dollars folding towels on TV to prove he’s an honorary girl. We appreciate that.†This was a reference to a television ad of Brown’s, in which he is seen folding laundry.
Finally, an actual example of the war on women!
Whether Scott Brown wins or loses, it’s been an absolute delight watching the Massachusetts Democratic Party become completely unhinged over having to win back a seat that they rightfully think belongs to them, and not being able to quite seal the deal with the people of Massachusetts.
Interpol to Establish Arms Tracing System?
ATF already maintains a database of lost and stolen firearms, so that if one is traced, they can identify the rightful owner. Now it seems Interpol will be establishing a database of its own:
Modeled after INTERPOL’s Stolen and Lost Travel Document System which today contains more than 33 million entries, iARMS will feature a hit alarm to the country of report when a match is detected. Replacing INTERPOL’s existing firearms tracing system, it will redirect users to trace firearms not found in the database, thereby linking the two processes of searching a database of reported lost, stolen, smuggled and trafficked firearms with firearms tracing. It will also enable states to capture their own statistics for crime-trend analysis and to assist them in meeting reporting requirements. iARMS will be piloted to 20 countries in September.
Think you’ll ever see your firearm again if Interpol traces it? Think your gun will come out of the database, if it is returned? I think the Arms Trade Treaty is practically guaranteed to expand in scope if it’s brought into being.
What Happens When a Coastal Elite Visits America
It’s always funny when they find America, which you know, has a lower violent crime rate than California, and doesn’t see guns as some kind of demonic curse in sorry need of an exorcism:
I’m not big on slamming magazines into a gun in a shop for effect, I’ll be honest.
“I have six handguns—bought five of them here,” an old man said to me. I was waiting for Ron, who’d gone to the back room to find a gun he thought I might like. “I have five rifles, got all of them here,” the man said. “I spend most of my time reloading shells. All my friends are dead.” He had thin white hair and a long, sagging face dotted with age spots. “Do you know what the biggest problem with divorce is? It’s the bedroom. And a lot of it’s the man’s fault. Like a damn rabbit, on and off.”
It felt like we should have had rocking chairs, perhaps a set of checkers between us. This was one of the things I liked most about Sprague’s: the general-store feel. Groups would form, strangers becoming neighbors, sharing stories. “I lost my wife in November,” the man said. “Sixty years. Now my kids keep trying to get me to go live with them in California. My doctor said, ‘What’s your lifestyle?’ I told him guns. He said, ‘Stay in Yuma.’ “
I guess it’s a bit late for Markey’s Law Monday, but it’s still Monday out on the west coast. You have to love it when they are subtle about suggesting interest in guns is a sexual dysfunction.
“I just got that same Smith for my kid,” he said.
I looked at him. He appeared far too young to have a grown son.
“Wait, how old is your kid?” I asked.
“Six,” he said.
Yeah, buying a .22 for a kid. The horror.
Richard Sprague, the owner of Sprague’s Sports, is a slender man in his fifties with a tapered face, coarse graying hair, and an easy smile. Other Arizona gun stores would not even entertain my request to visit and ask questions about selling guns and ammunition, but Richard without hesitation invited me to spend as much time as I wanted at Sprague’s—behind the counter, in the back room, at the shooting range, anywhere I wished.
The other Arizona gun stores were smarter. I really wish gun shops would understand there is not much good that can come of speaking with reporters. I am definitely a fan of engagement, but there’s very little the media is going to report about several days in a gun shop that’s not going to end up being twisted like this horror. These people hate you. You don’t have to explain yourself. They are the barbarians, not you. If a reporter seems to try to want to understand you, the best defense is to walk away, because it’s probably a set-up. These people are not at all to be trusted.
The vampires among journalists will always feed to the greatest satisfaction off ordinary, good people, who honestly just want to talk and be understood. Don’t be tempted. They are out to get you. I think what bothers me the most is that this reporter is from Pennsylvania, which is still, last I checked, part of America when it comes to mostly respecting the 2nd Amendment. I grew up not 50 miles from where I live now, about 5 miles outside of Philadelphia, and I knew people who hunted, did target shooting, and carried guns for self-defense. Some of them I called family. It was not a novel or unusual concept for me. So I really have to wonder, if this reporter is from Pennsylvania, where exactly she’s from, because clearly she hasn’t seen much of her own state.
UPDATE: Someone pointed out the reporter was a woman, so the article has been updated accordingly.
Ikea Hacks
If there’s one fundamental constant in our household, it’s that I’m a cheap bastard. I don’t like spending money on things I need, so I can save money to buy things I don’t need. Unfortunately, “things I need” has been dominating the past year, with expensive house repairs, dental work, and car repairs rounding out the top places I’m spending money. I am disappointed to find yet another “things I need” knocking at the door and begging to have money spent on it.
I don’t think I’ve ever owned an actual desk. I do have an Aeron chair (which I highly recommend, if you have the cash or come across one) I acquired from the previous company’s liquidation, because I’d be too cheap to pay full price for something like that. But my desk has always consisted of a six foot folding table and a five foot folding table, arranged in an L configuration, showing here, though rarely this tidy:
I’ve gotten along OK with folding tables, but when you put drinks, electronics, gun parts, etc, on a surface that’s basically a laminated printout of wood backed with paper, and then glued onto particle board, the surface tends to go pretty fast. At some point, I turn the table around so the crappy parts are in the back, but about once every three years or so, it’s time for another folding table. Yesterday, I had a big piece of “laminate” (i.e. paper) come up, and extended my tape job another foot or so to patch it. I’ve looked at the polymer folding tables, and they feel flimsy to me. Cable channeling would also be more difficult without the steel supports. If you look at solid wood or high quality laminate folding tables, you’re now talking real money. So it is time for the madness to end. I looked online to find better solutions, and I’m struck by how much office furniture either sucks, or is expensive. I’ve always liked Ikea as a cheap, not quite sucky solution, but nothing they had was big enough for my desk space requirements. The trend today seems to be for smaller workspaces, which I would quickly have piled a foot high with crap. So Bitter helped me go through Pinterest and Ikea Hackers, and I found the perfect solution:
Perfect idea for solving my problem! I don’t much like the red, but it comes in black. The butcher block countertop they use, made of solid oak, is a little rich for me, but Ikea offers a much cheaper alternative in a solid Beech. They make it in lengths of 96 inches, which can be cut to size. It’ll work fine for making two desks I can arrange nicely in an L shape. I’d also pick up some storage space, since they also have drawer and cubby modules for this desk. I can stick the server that runs the blog in the cubby, alongside its UPS, if I don’t install the middle piece.
All this can be done for under 300 bucks. That may be double what I’d spend on a new pair of folding tables, but I think solid Beech is going to hold up a lot better than laminate, and if it gets rough, I can just plane it, sand it, and refinish it. If you have a look around that Ikea Hackers site, it’s pretty amazing what people are doing with some of their furniture.
For That Person Who Said We Needed Vision Tests
Congrats to Mr. Completely, for getting a positive article about shooting and shooters into the main stream media. And just a note to “Dog Gone” who suggested we all needed to pass vision tests, like keeping and bearing arms was some kind of privilege doled out by the likes of her:
It’s a trick he’s learned pretty well. The nearly lifelong South Whidbey resident is undoubtedly the island’s quickest and greatest crack shot with a record in Steel Challenge competition shooting to prove it.
He’s also nearly blind.
Suffering from presbyopia, a condition in which the eye loses the ability to focus and makes it extremely difficult to see objects up close, Gallion is severely farsighted. His vision is roughly 20/400.
The condition forces him to wear three different pairs of glasses. It’s a hurdle few in his sport have to contend with — most of those who do well don’t wear glasses at all. However, poor eyesight hasn’t seemed to hurt Gallion’s record.
Since he started a little more than a decade ago, the 67-year-old has secured about 100 first place finishes — at least five of which are state championships — including a gold medal at an international competition in Holland this past May.
If we put Mr. C into a head-to-head competition with successive members of the NYPD, I’d put big money on Mr. C besting all of them, and if I was going to be this guy, I’d certainly feel a lot better with Mr. C behind the trigger than most of the folks the gun control crowd says are “responsible and trained enough” to bear arms. People can find ways to deal with advantages and disadvantages. Bitter is nearly blind too, enough that if she loses her glasses, I’d have to help her find them. Enough that she can’t do well with skeet because the field of vision outside her glasses is so bad she can’t see the bird until it’s practically in front of her. Yet I’m fairly certain she could put 16 rounds into a man sized target at 7 yards, even under stress, without hitting 9 other people.
And “Dog Gone” wants to tell shooters that they need a vision test for exercising a right? I print this stuff because sometimes the nerve of these people appalls me. I’m sure that people like “Dog Gone” and Joan Peterson think themselves big advocates for the rights of people with disabilities in any other context, until they decide they want to exercise their Second Amendment rights, that is. Sure, maybe a disabled hunter would be fine by them, but the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting, and never has been. It’s hard not to walk away with the notion that they absolutely hate people that decide to exercise their rights. In that sense they are all for equality, whether disabled, black or white, rich or poor. They would have everyone equally disarmed and rendered powerless.
Happy Labor Day Folks
Today is the day we celebrate labor by not doing any. When you work from home, three day weekends don’t have the same feel. First off, it’s easy to forget. You don’t have coworkers reminding you, or asking you about what you’ll be doing over the long weekend. It would have been easy to come down here and start working, forgetting completely it’s a holiday. It also doesn’t quite feel like a day off. Now, a day off is when I leave the house. If I come down here to my office, invariably I start doing something, because all my somethings are right here. So to have time off, I generally have to be focused on activities away from the computer. If I get bored, I’ll come down here and work on something.
So today it’s going to be smoking up some baby back ribs. My smoke wood will be cherry, and I’ll have to formulate a rub. My rubs for chicken tend to be lighter, focusing more on onion, garlic, sometimes ginger or coriander, and other flavors that go well with chicken. My rubs for pork tend to be redder, sometimes with fennel, and other spices that go well with pork. Â Beef I like peppery, both from pepper peppers and chili peppers. A lot of times I just mix spices, salt, and sugar together until it tastes good. On ribs I tend to cheat. I’ve found the 3-2-1 method, of smoking for 3 hours, foiling for two, and finishing for 1 hour ends with the best results. Sometimes I only foil for an hour. I’ve successfully done ribs without foil, but I tend to prefer moister, more tender ribs, and I have a hard time getting that without foiling.
For a side, we really like this cole slaw recipe. Bitter hates blue cheese, but loves this. I gave it to someone else who hates cole slaw and they loved it. It goes great with a beef dish, and also pork. Usually we’ll cheat and use bacon bits from a jar (the real ones, the fakes ones are an abomination). I’ll also probably concoct some legume-based side as well. So that’s my “Yay! It’s a holiday,” plan for not hanging around the office too much.
Sometimes They Are Honest, At Least
In at least one Brady supporter’s mind, what would be required for gun carrying and ownership gun? I point this out because it’s very rare for gun control advocates to elucidate detailed views of what policies they actually propose, once you get past whatever “common sense gun safety measures” that happen to be the cause du jure they feel like they might have a chance to ram through Congress. Instead of policy discussions, you get a lot of NRA evil, blah blah blah, for the children, blah blah blah, we have to do something, blah blah blah. So I tend to appreciate it when I see some honesty.
I have advocated for regular testing, including physical ability to be steady with a gun, eye testing the way we do for driving that would require someone to be wearing their glasses if they use their firearm – or even just carry it. Regular renewals, not a for life permitting (or non-permitting in the case of AZ). Peformance testing annually. Drug testing, including for alcohol abuse because of the links between violence and aggression, poor impulse control and judgment impairment. Some sort of psychology screening to keep the obvious, known dangerously mentally ill from acquiring firearms – like Ian Stawicki, Jared Loughner, James Holmes. A requirement of insurance for gun ownership and for carrying, so that there is guaranteed compensation for anyone shot in error or by accident or even by an evil intentional shooting. Repeal of all shoot first laws, and a reinforcement that if you shoot someone, and you are wrong, you are held fully legally accountable for doing so, not given an exemption from criminal or civil court proceedings.
Until that didn’t work, and then there were so few gun owners left, they didn’t have any power to stand up to outright prohibition. Which still wouldn’t work, just like prohibiting things people want has never worked anywhere it’s been tried, but hey, it makes people feel good.
We treat no other constitutional right this way, so my only offer on compromise here is to say “No f**king way!” and fight them every step of the way down that slippery slope, and continue to try to push the gun control movement back up, and then hopefully down the other side to somewhere around Carrie Nation Gulch. It’s a constitutional right. It has to be treated like one. Because of how we treat other constitutional rights, that still leaves a lot of room for measures I probably won’t like, just like I don’t agree with all the 1st Amendment or 4th Amendment jurisprudence. But most people, and the courts, still treat these Amendments as serious limits on governmental power, which by their existence proscribe certain policy choices (though that’s getting iffy for the 4th, but I digress). If you don’t like the implications of that, you can work to change the Constitution. But you have to start from there. There is no negotiating on that. You can’t just pretend that is not the case, and you can’t just reinterpret it, absent any historical evidence and against the understanding of the vast majority of Americans, to suggest it has no meaning.