A plurality of Floridans support the Stand Your Ground law. Support is particularly high among Republicans and Independents, with Democrats against it by about half. Sorry, but self-defense laws aren’t a place our opponents are going to get much traction among the people. Part of the reason that votes on these bills has been so lop sided is that no politician wants to be the one who voted against self-defense. Our opponents may find that our momentum is slowed for a bit, but I think it’s wishful thinking if they believe this is going to turn the tide.
Year: 2012
On the Acela
Stopped briefly at New York Penn Station on my way to Boston. I do have to admit, this is nice, and we cruised through New Jersey at ludicrous speed, which is the right speed to go through that state at. Speedometer app on the phone says we averaged about 120 and hit a peak speed of about 140mph. I do have to admit, you combine this with no TSA and I have to admit it’s nicer than flying. Still frigging expensive though.
Voters are a Threat to Children
We vote in a school. Traditionally, we go down a long hallway toward the gymnasium where each half of the room is divided off to support two different precincts. This morning, we were directed into a fenced area with different doors and different rooms than we’ve used before. The person outside directing people told us, “It’s about keeping the children safe.”
Wow. I didn’t realize that voters who care enough to turn up to vote on Primary Day at 7am were a threat to children. As Sebastian said when we passed a large group of kids waiting to catch the school bus on a busy street, how could we leave them so unprotected from voters? The might learn about being engaged with their community or something!
Seriously, this annoyed me on so many levels. First of all, the woman just said I was a threat to kids. Second, the doors had to be propped open so they would remain unlocked, and it was 40 degrees out this morning with windchill in the mid-30s. The election workers were all in long sleeves and coats and still talking about being cold. How much extra will we pay in heating bills today for those rooms to never get warm? Third, there are no signs to tell the people who have been voting there for years that things changed. Just a woman who will inform any lost looking adults that they must enter the fenced area and go in the designated rooms so they are kept away from the children in the name of safety.
On a random note, I was voter number 1. I should have let Sebastian go first since he’s never been the first voter before. This is not my first time. Yes, I take a little pride in it.
As for the controversial voter id law here in Pennsylvania, it was painless. I didn’t even have to pull my license out of the holder in the little wallet. My only complaint is that you’d think the poll workers could learn how to spell our names even when we are spelling them verbally AND showing them identification. But no. Alas, expecting poll workers who can see, hear, or spell simple names is too much.
Brady Pledge Drive Fail
On the anniversary of Virginia Tech, apparently the Brady folk didn’t have a whole lot of luck convincing anyone to sign their pledge to support gun control. As Jacob notes, there are a lot of reps in safe districts that could have played along. Why haven’t they?
A Reality Check
Thirdpower rubs it in for opponents a bit that the task force that will examine Florida’s gun laws seems set to have a number of pro-gun people on it, which likely mean it’s not meant to come to a predetermined conclusion in favor of gun control. In fact, this probably won’t end well for our opponents. They seem to believe that this is it. This is the big one. The event that makes the pendulum swing back around in their favor.
The thing is, I’m not sure they won’t ultimately be right in the end. The case against Zimmerman is so thin you could shine a candle through it, which makes it ripe for being dismissed under Florida’s immunity statute. If cities ultimately burn because our opponents managed to amp up the mob, things could get very bad for us. But whether the pendulum ultimately swings or not, is up to us. We’re a movement that can turn out close to 74,000 people in crappy weather in St. Louis. There’s really no excuse for getting our butts handed to us by these people.
A Right to Record the Police
Glenn Reynolds has a Commentary in the Washington University law review on a citizen’s right to record the police. I think this is an important check against governmental power.
Pennsylvania Primary Decisions
Tomorrow is Election Day in the Commonwealth. Now that the presidential race is largely locked up, attention focuses on our Senate primary to take on Sen. Bob Casey. For those of you who only loosely follow politics in the Keystone State, this is a great article summing up the problems the GOP has created for itself in this race.
For those who don’t follow Pennsylvania politics, well, the state Republican Party powers that be endorsed a guy who wanted to host a fundraiser for very liberal (and extremely anti-gun) Joe Sestak and was a Democrat who voted for Obama in 2008. In the lead is a guy who was a Democrat for 40 years and hasn’t even been a Republican long enough to have voted in a GOP primary before. Somewhere between those two is Sam Rohrer who has already shown he’s not so great at running a statewide campaign when he made bizarre campaign investments in his failed gubernatorial race.
So you might see why Republicans in Pennsylvania are kinda “eh” about the whole thing. Here are a few funny quotes I’ve found in the media surrounding the race:
Welch [the GOP endorsed former Democrat] is hoping the high amount of undecided voters — even in Smith’s own most recently released survey, about a third of the Republican electorate was undecided — will gravitate to him.
I love the logic of this businessman. If a voter tells a pollster they are undecided, they will come to me! Unfortunately, that’s flawed logic. We’re undecided, but I know my indecision is over which non-Welch candidate will get my vote. I will not reward the state party officials who handpicked pretty much the worst possible candidate. It will be a blow to the party, and maybe a few more county leaders will oppose the endorsement process all together next time.
Next is the view of a voter:
“Most of the time, it’s Election Day before I make up my mind,†said Richard Beard, a dinner attendee from nearby Chambersburg, Pa., who couldn’t name the Republican candidates.
What dinner was he attending? The area GOP dinner. This is someone who cares enough about the party to show up to dinners with potential presidential candidates. Yet he can’t name any of the GOP candidates in the primary, much less the party-backed candidate. Yes, that my friends is what we call enthusiasm. And that’s what awaits us for November.
That said, we will both be at the doors to the school as soon as they open tomorrow morning. Make sure you know which Congressional district you are in this year since those maps changed. NRA is endorsing in the primaries in the new PA-4 (old PA-19), PA-17 (dramatically redrawn), and PA-18.
Next Few Days
Starting tomorrow I have to take a business trip to Boston, where I’ll be until Thursday evening. I’m catching an Acela up there tomorrow morning, so we’ll see what this almost-but-not-quite high speed rail thing the left so loves is all about.
Posting may be kind of spotty, so I’ll be relying on Bitter more than usual. I don’t know how much time I’ll have to enjoy the city, but I might try to see a few things that are on the Freedom We Don’t Believe in Anymore Trail.
Brady Alchemy
NRA becomes toxic when exposed to light, says Dan Gross:
In the weeks since George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin, corporate America has been force fed a crash survey of public opinion on gun policy. Some of America’s most popular –and message-savvy — companies announced their swift verdict when they, and then ALEC, withdrew support for the National Rifle Association’s paranoid, violent agenda.
You’d think with Gross’s background, he’d know that corporate PR departments generally eschew any kind of controversy. The reason they put the screws to ALEC is because they were looking to ALEC to defend their economic interests, and didn’t want to be associated with ancillary issues like gun rights or voting rights. Sean makes a very cogent argument that the real target of this was the Voter ID law. In this case, the astroturf campaign run by Soros seized upon the Trayvon Martin shooting as a means to defang ALEC, and ALEC, being largely funded by corporate interests, obliged.
But nothing in Gross’s wild eyed ramblings changes the fact that a movement that has people power does not require the use of ALEC. They believe the tide is turning in their favor. I think that entirely depends on us. It is time to awaken the sleeping giant. Tell your shooting buddies to get ready, because over the next several months, everything we worked for the past two decades is going to be under fierce attack, and it will all be on the line. All of it. But if we go into 2013 having beaten them, they’ll be finished. This is our opportunity.
PETA with Suits and Deodorant
I admit that I laughed. I also shared it on Facebook to my friends and family who have probably donated.