Still doesn’t exist. City Council has seen the writing on the wall, and are trying to improve matter in regards to gun rights in the District, and as Dave says, take them from insane, to merely being unreasonable and unconstitutional. But apparently Mayor Grey likes the crazy.
Year: 2012
Latest in Zimmerman Case
A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.
In addition, apparently Trayvon Martin had injuries to his knuckles. A clean case of self-defense would hinge on who the instigator was, but with this kind of evidence, it’s difficult to see how the prosecution still intends to support second degree murder. Even if Zimmerman was initially the aggressor, the most this would be is manslaughter.
But the angry mob had to be appeased, didn’t it? We should be ashamed of ourselves as a country for believing what the media said about this case, and more importantly the media should be triply ashamed for practically lying the country along the way to major urban riots.
Doing Some Good
Please excuse the very off topic post, but you all should know by now that I’m a bleeding heart libertarian. If you like the idea of teaching kids how to read so they can actually read and appreciate our founding documents, then literacy should be a concern. It’s not just a hooked on phonics kind of literacy, but teaching kids how to truly understand the stories they read. Reading with Pictures thinks that they can capture the interest and imagination of kids by using comics. Yup, comics.
Right now, Reading with Pictures is running a Kickstarter campaign to support their first graphic textbook. They are a few hundred dollars short, and their campaign ends Thursday. They just met their goal, but they are trying to raise more so they can expand their plans for the organization!
As a 501(c)3, it’s a deductible donation. They also have all sorts of crazy incentives for higher donations. You can get a custom action figure of yourself ($275), become a Revolutionary War-era sketch in your own copy of the textbook ($70), have a kid in your life drawn into a comic as a classmate of the main character ($75), original artwork & commissions (starting at $75), or a hard copy of the textbook ($25).
The War Against Stand Your Ground
I’ve been watching our opponents somewhat carefully, since they launched the Second Chance on Shoot First campaign. I thought it was curious to note that while Mayor Bloomberg put his weight behind this effort, it did not appear that MAIG was joining. But then I noticed one of MAIG’s campaigns released a mother day message from Sabryna Fulton, however, you will note that it mentions nothing about Stand Your Ground, nor will you find it linked anywhere on the Fix Gun Checks Campaign web site. Why would this be?
Probably because Bloomberg can read polling data as much well as anyone else (h/t Dave Hardy for the link). There is a gap in thinking between elites and ordinary Americans on matters of self-defense, and Bloomberg has made a concerted effort to keep MAIG’s message narrow, and focused on topics that poll well. While the other two gun control groups, CSGV and Brady, have become a P.T. Barnum quality freak show, MAIG is being very careful with its image and message. Bloomberg must be worried fighting Stand your Ground using his Mayors could backfire on him.
He’s right. MAIG already got a small taste of what a minor campaign by NRA against his mayors cost him in terms of membership. He would not want to do anything to wake up the grassroots to take the fight to his mayors on their own. I think we can expect MAIG to largely stay out of the fight on Stand Your Ground, while Bloomberg will run a parallel effort under his own name, rather than that of his Mayors organization.
Clayton Cramer Needs Help
He’s helping with an Amicus brief challenging discretionary permit issuance, and he needs every “the blood will run in the streets” quote you all can find. Doesn’t have to literally be that, but any quite predicting murder, mayhem, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
Annoying the Opposition By Using Their Own Logic
Anytime a remark of mine spawns a post on CSGV’s “Things Pro-Gun Activists Say That We Take Out Of Context“ I feel I must be doing something right. I finally got tired of them spewing their peacenik nonsense, and tried to make them live up to the logical conclusion of their rhetoric, which would be that the violent, armed resistance that was necessary to eradicate Nazism in Europe was an immoral act. Apparently they didn’t appreciate that, and went off at length to mischaracterize my statement as suggesting that advocating non-intervention was the same as outright support.
But the fact is, anyone who advocated for waging peace against the Nazis, or sitting idly by while Hitler conquered Europe and wiped the Jewish people off the face of the planet, certainly fits in the category of those who “would have let Hitler finish his final solution.” Perhaps that is a logical conclusion of CSGV’s rhetoric for which they are deeply uncomfortable. But I suspect that is the case.
I would point out I never got a satisfactory answer to my question posed here, and ultimately CSGV had to cop out of that particular conversation, suggesting that questions about how to defeat Hitler by waging peace were above their pay grade, even though they themselves advocate this philosophy on a regular basis.
Stop and Frisk
Number Nine
Not many bloggers make it to 9 years. Congrats to Kevin. Kevin’s blog was one of the blogs that was on my RSS feed before I started blogging.
Observing the Transit of Venus
In a couple of weeks, Venus will once again transit the face of the sun, on June 5th and 6th specifically. The last transit was in 2004, but this won’t happen again in our lifetimes. The next transit will not be until 2117, well into the 22nd century. It would be interesting to observe this, but I am not aware whether it can be observed with ordinary equipment, such as you can make for viewing a solar eclipse. Does anyone know much about how one would observe a phenomena like this absent a very expensive solar telescope?
More Chasing the Culture War Stick
Looks like even Rand Paul can’t help himself, to the point where even the FRC doesn’t particularly appreciate the Senator’s remarks. Yeah, I can see a couple of college students making a crack like that over some beers. I can’t see a sitting United States Senator thinking that kind of humor is a wise thing. I was hoping that perhaps Rand Paul could avoid beclowning himself like his father accomplished by trawling the paelolib/paleocon fever swamp for support back in the 80s. Now, not only has Rand Paul chased the stick, but he gnawed on it so viscously, even the SoCos don’t want to play fetch with him anymore.