2012 – Page 148 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Boycott Fail

The media is started to pick up on the utter failure of the anti-gun Boycott of Starbucks, with articles appearing in the Hawaii Reporter and Loudoun Times about our BUYcott. What I find very telling here is this:

That article hasn’t been up that long and it already has close to 20,000 likes. The numbers don’t lie. The anti-gun Boycott has accomplished nothing but driving more sales to Starbucks then they otherwise would have had. For those not following along on Twitter, I can report to you that the other side is becoming positively unhinged, prompting one person to win the Internets:

In the mean time, our opponents are resorting to the only argument they have left:Â dick jokes. More of the same over at Joe’s.

Double Standards

Weer’d has discovered one of our opponents in the Gun Control movement is into swordsmanship. A perfectly fine hobby, as far as I’m concerned, but Weer’d notes:

Donâ€™t see a lot of swords around these days. One reason is many places restrict the carry of them. Another big reason is theyâ€™re really good for only one thing, killing. Back in the day swords in a similar design to his were issued to ARMIES!

Worth noting that the entirely of the Western world, and a good part of the Eastern world, was largely conquered with this:

This was the most sophisticated killing machine known to man up until he dawn of the gunpowder age. It is as much meant to kill as any firearm, and it is unambiguously a weapon of war. I find it amazing that an advocate of gun control, who practices swordsmanship, can’t understand why people who practice another martial art, shooting, get a little upset when you demean them, ridicule them, and try to limit their access and freedom to exercise their chosen hobby.

Federal Lawsuit Over Philly Open Carry Incident

The federal complaint can be found here. The media story about the lawsuit is here. I’ve read over the complaint. In addition to suing over the February 2011 incident last year, he’s also suing over two prior incidents with the Philadelphia police. He’s suing up the chain of command to reach Ramsey, the Philadelphia Police Commissioner. Section 1983 doesn’t just allow you to sue the individual officers, you can sue all the way up the chain to anyone responsible for overseeing and training officers. The agents of the PPD are being sued in their individual capacities, which means the plaintiff here needs to overcome qualified immunity. If successful, he will be able to recover damages. This is looking like it’ll be an easy case here:

60. During discussions with PPD Internal Affairs Sergeant Maria Cianfrani (BadgeÂ #8704), which occurred after Mr. Fiorino filed a written complaint with Internal Affairs relating to the Second Incident, Sergeant Cianfrani specifically stated to Mr. Fiorino that what happened to him with regard to the First and Second Incidents was â€œoutright illegal.â€

61. Sergeant Cianfrani also admitted to Mr. Fiorino that the Policy was illegal, and admitted that the officers involved in the First and Second Incidents were following the Policy when they detained Mr. Fiorino and when they confiscated his firearm, magazines and ammunition.

Even better:

Furthermore, in a May 18, 2011 radio interview with Michael Smerconish, which aired live on 1210 AM WPHT Philadelphia, Commissioner Ramsey admitted that at the time of the three aforementioned incidents, PPD officers were not aware that open carry was legal with a valid LTCF and that training on the issue was necessary and would be given to all officers.

The lawsuit asks the court to enjoin the city from confiscating firearms unless a crime is committed, and unless it’s necessary for an investigation. It would be a huge victory for everyone if such an injunction is forthcoming from the court. It also asks for damages and attorneys fees from each of the defendants. The complaint is rooted in the 4th Amendment rather than the 2nd. That’s a good thing here. His 4th Amendment rights are what was violated.

A Little Starbucks Appreciation

Bitter I went today. I was going to post my receipt, but I forgot to ask for one. Oops. Either way, we pumped 15 dollars into the Starbucks economy today. If Facebook is to be believed, there will be around 23,000 people that will join me.

Feel free to post a link or picture of your appreciation today, and don’t forget to let Starbucks Corporate know that you appreciate them staying out of the great gun debate. I’d also like to note that while the red velvet whoopee pies are good, they are no substitute for the full size red velvet cupcake, which I miss.

Crime Control Theater

Those of us who follow the debate over various gun controls understand the concept of “crime control theater,” though it’s something we usually talk about in regards to security measures that are actually quite worthless. I’m thinking about the subject because I just stumbled across this paper abstract on AMBER alerts that find they are actually not terribly successful.

Why am I looking up AMBER alerts? Well, because a girl from my high school class recently had her 17-month-old daughter taken by child’s biological father. Because she was not abducted by a stranger and has no medical conditions that put her in immediate danger, the child’s disappearance can’t be reported via AMBER alert. It also doesn’t seem to be getting any media attention, though that may be due to law enforcement procedures.

I feel terrible for the mother. There’s really not much she can do, but she is using social media to try and spread the photos of her daughter, her ex, and the last car he was known to be driving. A quick search indicates that the father was recently indicted in Texas on theft charges, so it’s questionable what his return plans are now that there’s a new warrant for failure to return in Oklahoma.

This is the ultimate type of case where there really isn’t much that can be done by the victims, so I understand where the support for some type of “crime control theater” comes from. Is it smart policy to do something that makes the victims feel good even if it doesn’t have a direct impact on the resolution of the crime? I don’t think so. The paper abstract points out that there is risk of blowback, which is a legitimate concern. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the victims feel any better when the child is still missing.

UPDATE: I noticed that folks in the mother’s social circle are already talking about the “broken system” of the AMBER alert process. They want it “fixed” so that it will publish every missing child.

Needless to say, now is not the time I would even consider having a discussion over whether or not it is truly broken, but it does show how easy it is to get wrapped up in the theater without focusing on crime control solutions that will actually yield results. However, given that this situation is one where a non-custodial parent has taken the child, it’s been more than 10 days since she was last seen, and the father has access to multiple cars, the chances of the alert system working are basically nil. Again, that’s not what those who are calling the system “broken” want to hear.

It does rather remind me of many gun control supporters who came to the issue through knowing a victim. It doesn’t matter that their case would not have turned out any different if the laws were changed, they feel something in the legal system broken just because someone else was able to do something bad.

Why Support Self-Defense?

Justice Stephen Breyer encountered a machete-wielding intruder in his vacation home last week, so you’d think that he’d be a little more inclined to support the right of self-defense a bit more than he did in the days when he heard the Heller and McDonald cases. I doubt you’ll see him come around based on the history of which recent SCOTUS justices have been attacked and how they voted in the above cases. Fox News gives us an AP report with this background:

The last time a justice was the victim of a crime was in 2004, when a group of young men assaulted Justice David Souter as he jogged on the street in Washington.

In 1996, a man snatched Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s purse while she was out walking with her husband and daughter near their home in Washington.

In other words, experiencing an assault or robbery doesn’t seem to make them any more inclined to vote for a meaningful individual right to bear arms for defense.

Making the Press More Anti-Gun

One of the strategies Media Matters employs in trying to make sure that all reporters only provide a left-leaning vision of America is to release the hounds on smaller reporters working for regional papers. They throw the weight of their nationwide fundraising and contact list, as well as the bloggers who carry their water, onto reporters who are just trying to cover the news as it relates to the towns around them.

Reporters who werenâ€™t cooperative might feel the sting of a Media Matters campaign against them. â€œIf you hit a reporter, say a beat reporter at a regional newspaper,â€ a Media Matters source said, â€œall of a sudden theyâ€™d get a thousand hostile emails. Sometimes theyâ€™d melt down. It had a real effect on reporters who werenâ€™t used to that kind of scrutiny.â€

It’s not a surprise at all, but it is useful to be reminded when it is coming straight from the mouths of former employees.

I highlight this because I think this shows why we should recognize when local papers get the stories on Second Amendment issues right. With Media Matters accepting funds specifically to attack any remotely fair or even slightly pro-rights reporting, they have an incentive to try and scare or shut down reporters who give gun owners a fair shake. (Meanwhile, it would be interesting to know how much of the Joyce Foundation money for anti-gun reporting went to paying the salaries of those who carried guns for the organization illegally.) They simply cannot handle the idea that anyone in the press would even acknowledge the Second Amendment as an individual right or be fair and balanced. If that happens, Media Matters would rather see those reporters “melt down” than keep writing.

Tomorrow is Starbucks Appreciation Day

Don’t forget that tomorrow is Starbucks Appreciation Day. So far we’re up to about 18,500 people who are confirmed to spend a little money at Starbucks tomorrow. It would be really nice to get that number to tip 20,000. If everyone spends just 10 bucks for coffee, and a pastry or two, that’s a noticeable uptick in daily sales. Meanwhile, our opponents have hidden their number from public view, because at last count it was utterly embarrassing for them.

Congrats to VFTP

For playing a large role in keeping Santorum off the ballot in Indiana. It’s like the ghost of 1994 around this election, between Newt and Rick. It’s highly doubtful Santorum could even carry his own state (Pennsylvania, I mean, because it’s been long believed he actually lived in Virginia, but I’m doubtful he could carry Virginia either). I don’t like Mitt, but given Newt’s penchant for self-destructing, and Santorum’s penchant for wanting the government in everyone’s bedrooms, I’m not seeing too many other alternatives.

And don’t give me the Ron Paul crap. Paul is finished in this race. He never had a chance. I’m just hoping libertarians can find a better standard bearer; someone who can actually win. I’d take Rand Paul, if we really want a Paul. I’d also take Gary Johnson, if anyone knew who he was anymore.

On Guns Becoming More Popular and Mainstream

This weekend I had planned to go to the gun show in Oaks, just to see what there was to see. I’ve been wanting to grab a Ruger LCP for some time, but having been unemployed for several months, and worried about my job for a year leading up to the dissolution of my former employer, I haven’t really been doing much gun wise. This was my first gun show in more than a year. I was worried when a reader sent me a picture of the line waiting to get in Saturday morning:

I decided I’d wait until Sunday. Sunday crowds are usually thinner, but with the downside that the show has been relatively picked over by that time, because collectors usually have snatched up all the interesting pieces by then. I wasn’t really looking for a collector piece, however, so that didn’t concern me. I walked in about 2:00PM Sunday, which would have been two hours before the show closed.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed to Bitter, “I’ve never seen this many people at a gun show in my life, and it’s Sunday, two hours before the show closes.” It was extremely difficult to get around the floor, and were I not taller than most people, spotting guns through the herd was going to be impossible. The LCP is generally going for about $325-$350 at most gun stores I’ve been to, but sometimes at shows you can find dealers coming down from central and northern Pennsylvania, where prices are cheaper, and who don’t mark their inventory up to Philadelphia area price levels. I counted six LCPs left in the show, and one of them was an even $300, from a Columbia, PA based gun store. I was hoping to find a little lower, but getting to go to a gun show and beating the cheapest price in the area by $25 is enough to satisfy me. It took a while to get the dealer’s attention through the crowds of people surrounding his tables, but fortunately they were a well oiled machine about processing people through paperwork and NICS. They had at least four people there processing paperwork, and they needed them. While slowly moving my way through the herd, I was listening carefully to what dealers were telling people, and observing the makeup of the crowd. Some observations:

People were crowding around pistol displays. I don’t think folks are buying too many rifles right now.
There were far far more women there than at any gun show I’ve been at in the past. There were also more people bringing the whole family, including the kids.
A lot more African-Americans and other minority groups than I’ve seen at past shows, and Philadelphia area shows have never been lilly white.
Lots more gawkers than I’ve ever noticed at a show. I don’t mean gun people coming to look, but people who probably have no gun experience coming for, well, the experience. Noticed a couple of, what sounded like Hindi speaking 20 somethings, who’s booger hooks went immediately on the bang switch when handed a suppressed .22, with a wide-eyed look on their face like they had never seen anything like this before in their lives. I was relatively amused until the kid turned the gun sideways to muzzle Bitter and me with it, but after that they proceeded on like kids seeing Disneyland for the first time.
Overheard one conversation between a woman and a Class III dealer, where the woman expressed a desire to try shooting a machine gun, for which the dealer happily invited her up to his range to try anything he had to shoot, including something belt fed if she liked. Her response to his invitation was rather enthusiastic, and I didn’t get the impression she had been doing this gun thing for a while.

So our opponents in the gun control movement can be in denial all the want; there’s a sea change that’s happened in this issue in the past several years, and now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Guns aren’t just for fat old white guys anymore, and apparently neither are gun shows. The political implications of this will play out over the next decade, and it should be very interesting.