2012 – Page 71 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Someone Call Hell & Check the Temperature

Maybe the former name of the blog is appropriate here because I’m starting to wonder if there’s a snowstorm brewing somewhere. There’s a newspaper column calling for less nanny-statism.

The story starts by highlighting a bar owner who isn’t quite making the minimum amount of revenue on food at this Roanoke bar. He has shown the bureaucrats overwhelming evidence that he has tried various marketing efforts to get food sales up enough to keep his mixed drink liquor license, but it just hasn’t hit the magic number yet. His license is being suspended, and he’s paying a fine for the “crime” of not selling enough food.

Back in May, I suggested that Markell create a new menu item: the $1,000 bologna sandwich entree, with sides of sliced beets and sauteed rutabagas. Markell could buy one for himself every time he needed a little boost to get over the food-sales hump.

Markell agrees that baloney is a fitting metaphor for many of the ridiculous regulations liquor licensees have to follow. But he has a more radical idea.

Why not simply let a bar be a bar?

“They keep saying Virginia has a great business environment, but if you want to have a neighborhood bar, that’s not true,” Markell said.

So here’s a suggestion for Virginia legislators, every one of whom claims to be pro-small business.

Act like that, and introduce legislation that repeals certain hard-to-fathom ABC laws.

Keep the stuff that makes some sense, such as the prohibition on serving minors and intoxicated patrons, and requiring bars to close by 2a.m. Keep forcing bars to buy their liquor from the ABC, which produces significant revenue for state coffers. Maintain the prohibition on nude dancing in licensed establishments. That’ll keep the prudes quiet.

But why are bars forbidden from hanging neon beer signs in windows, when they can fill their walls with branded-beer posters?

Why, during happy hour, can a patron order a pitcher of Bud – which can hold four beers – but he can’t have more than two individual beers on the bar at once?

Why can’t bars advertise happy hour specials on social media?

Why can’t anybody order pitchers of margaritas, ever? All mixed drinks in pitchers are illegal in Virginia.

That stuff and more should be repealed.

Go read the whole thing to get the full story behind the honest barkeep who is getting screwed by the unreasonable rules.

Hammer Attack

In New York City. Clearly Bloomberg isn’t doing enough to combat hammer violence. Maybe there should be some kind of licensing, both to own and carry a hammer. You’d think from much of the rhetoric of our opponents that man was never violent until the invention of the firearm.

Complains of NRA Out of Tennessee

Apparently some members are not too happy NRA is going after Debra Maggart. I’d say that if this isn’t a story cooked up by Maggart’s campaign, I’ll eat my hat. Even if NRA pissed me off enough to cause me to resign my life membership, I wouldn’t feel that was something worth going to the press about.

NRA is supporting a primary challenge against Maggart in the GOP primary.

I Did Not Go to Chick-Fil-A Today

The whole thing kind of angers me, really, because I think both sides are wrong. I support government recognizing homosexual couples having the same legal rights as heterosexual couples when it comes to marriage. But I also support the Cathy family, owners of Chick-Fil-A, having religious believes that compel them to support traditional marriage, and being able to hold fast to those beliefs without being victims of thuggery by the likes of Boston Mayor Tom “Mumbles” Menino and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.

And as for Mumbles and his partner in tyranny Rahm, there is a special spot in hell, as far as I’m concerned. Because what they did by engaging in their thuggish behavior was expand the pro-Chick-Fil-A coalition enough that the message being sent to Dan Cathy is that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking a strong and firm position on social issues.

Let me play a bit of Devil’s advocacy for those on the left for whom social issues like gay marriage are important. Rahm and Mumbles just screwed you guys by taking things a step too far. Whatever you may think, they are not your allies. They have energized the right coalition in ways you can’t imagine. First Amendment and small government advocates are rightly just as outraged as opponents of gay marriage in how Chick-Fil-A has been treated. If these people will wait in long lines to buy chicken, in large enough numbers that the chickens can’t be killed and deliciously deep fried fast enough, what do you think they are going to do in November?

Bill Clinton’s real political genius was in understanding and exploiting the divisions in the right coalition. After having his posterior handed to him in 1994, he did what he was best at doing; he triangulated. Clinton decided to concede on a large part of the right’s economic plan, and in some cases actively embraced it, and made it his own. He then proceeded to fight culture wars on social issues, and the GOP took the bait. Under the Clinton strategy, I watched the Philadelphia ring counties go from Republican (though never very socially conservative) strongholds to favoring center-left Democrats.

Today, having driven around to see how busy our Chick-Fil-As were, just half an hour before closing, I think I may be watching the death of the Clinton strategy. Not because this strategy doesn’t work, but because the hard-core urban leftists like Barack Obama just can’t help themselves. Like a lot of big city politicians, they don’t understand that the political landscape is really driven by suburbs, and those politicians are rapidly tearing the Clinton strategy to pieces in their ignorance.

Quisling Alert: Tactical Firearms of Katy, Texas

Tam alerts us to an gun store and range, Tactical Firearms, in Katy, Texas who is perfectly willing to throw your freedom under the bus to make a buck at the expense of his online competitors. With friends like this, who needs enemies?

NYPD Selling Brass

A lot of gun owners seem to be reacting to this like some kind of gotcha against Bloomberg. I think it’s correct and proper for the NYPD to do this:

But on Wednesday Mayor Bloomberg’s position on gun control looked shakier as it was revealed that his police department, the NYPD, had sold 28,000lbs of spent bullet casings to a store which reloads them and sells them cheaply to customers.

I think that’s fine. We ought to be defending this practice, and not trying to use it as a club to beat Bloomberg over the head. It saves the NYPD money, helps keep the cases from being melted down and sold for scrap (at less economic value) and shooters get cheap, reloaded ammunition. I’ll give New York City and Bloomberg credit when they do something right.

Of course, I’ll leave it to your amusement that the Telegraph doesn’t know the difference between a bullet and a casing.

Details on Governor Quinn’s New Assault Weapons Ban

Thirdpower has the details. Apparently it’ll ban Glock pistols, and you’ll be required to register all your magazines over 10 rounds. One wonders how the mechanics of that work, given they don’t stamp serial numbers on magazines. Either way, Governor Quinn said in his statement vetoing important pro-gun legislation regarding ammunition:

I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitutionâ€“ the right to bear arms.

The last refuge of scoundrels, is that statement. They’re all supporters of the Second Amendment in their own minds. Even Bloomberg. Theyare no such thing. Not when banning Glocks and numerous common shotguns. I’d note, because of this, it would also ban the Beretta 92. Not to mention all the jobs that will be cost downstate when companies like Armalite are forced to leave the state. Don’t you love how these bills also have language that just happens, you know, to ban hundreds of commonly owned firearms no one in their right mind has ever considered assault weapons? You’d almost think the assault weapons issue was just a ruse to ban as many guns as these cretins can get away with.

4th Circuit Grants Maryland a Stay

According to Dave Hardy, they’ve granted a stay, meaning Maryland will still be permitted to consider “good and substantial” reason for permit applicants, until the case is decided on appeal. But as Dave mentions, they’ve accelerated the schedule for hearing the case, and it’ll be heard late October.

Everyone Shooting Better

According to gold medal-winner Vince Hancock, he believes that more people are taking the shooting sports seriously here in the U.S.:

So why is the U.S. so dominant in the sport over the last several years?

“I really think it’s because we want it more. And we’ve been bringing the youth along with us,” Hancock said. …

Hancock said the elite American shooters set a standard that brings up the competitive level of all shooters. “I’ve been shooting high scores for eight or nine years now. When I first started out, a 192 out of 200 in a local competition would win it. Now, it’s barely making the final,” he said.

“With Kim and I shooting these extremely high scores, it’s making everyone else shoot harder, and be more proficient and hit more targets. And that’s making us shoot even harder. Kim and I know that if we slip up, we’re going to lose.”

He also had a message that will hopefully convince some more folks to give shooting a try:

“There is nothing dangerous about what we do here, at any level. The biggest thing that we preach is safety first.”

Hancock believes shooting is one of the safest sports for competitors of any responsible age.

“I always tell a joke out there that we have less injuries than table tennis,” he said.

And if you think his outreach for the sport doesn’t help win us a few more hearts and (eventually, hopefully, minds), then you’re wrong:

Sometimes, that message is as simple as exposure to the sport. Hancock recalled one journalist about five years ago whose opinion was quickly altered after a day on the range.

“She was extremely anti-gun. But I talked her into trying it,” he said. “And once she hit some targets, you couldn’t take her off the field.”

We’re winning. We just need to keep up the work to expose more people to the positive aspects of gun ownership. We need to keep showing them why the gun range is a cool place to be instead of the non-existent and far less cool “anti-gun range.”

More Attacks on Sport Shooters & Hunters

I already highlighted the Twitter and blog attacks on U.S. Olympic shooter Corey Cogdell last night, but reader TS pointed out one of the Facebook groups organizing the attacks. Here’s just a sampling of comments I caught with screenshots this morning before we lost power.

I know that Shootin’ Buddy was noting that many of the threatening comments on Twitter were coming from people in other countries, but several of these folks are Americans.

I also thought it was worth highlighting because one of the comments relates to something I posted about recently – when someone who disagrees with gun owners or hunters on a matter of public policy, they try to define said disagreement of sign of a mental illness.