If only it were that easy.
Year: 2013
“Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire” Comes to Philly
It’s going to be screened at the Ritz at the Bourse, 4th and Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA. That’s here, for those interested.
Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire
With Guest Speaker Gun Rights Attorney Joshua PrinceThursday, August 8th 7:30pm $13.00
Ritz at the Bourse, 4th and Ranstead Street, PhiladelphiaTickets are available ONLINE ONLY. Please reserve yours ASAP.
https://www.tugg.com/go/akjcvx
You will not be charged unless/until screening attendance threshold is met.
Here’s the trailer:
Nikki Haley on the Gun Industry
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley proved that she is quite comfortable talking guns, business, and the business of guns in a recent video. While it is mostly just a summary of her trip to a gun manufacturer, I do love how she brags about taking time to shoot while in heels. The highlights of her visit show that she is absolutely comfortable handling firearms – certainly far more comfortable with firearms than most of Pennsylvania’s elected representatives.
Everything You Need to Know About the Colorado Recalls
Jim Geraghty has a handy guide, including a lot of aspects of it I didn’t know about. I didn’t realize this would be a mail-in ballot. You have to first vote “Yes” to recall, and then vote for the replacement. A “no” vote on recall will leave the incumbent in place. Not voting on the recall question will invalidate your ballot.
Having thrown down, we really have to win the recall. Closer to the election, when the ducks line up, we’ll take a look at the opposition candidates. I would encourage everyone to do what they can to support the recall efforts. A win or a loss here will have implications for the entire country, not just Colorado.
A Few News Links
Hopefully to be replaced by fresh news if the media can stop talking about Trayvon Martin for 10 minutes, and I suspect they will. But that new shiny thing is likely to be Will and Kate’s new baby. Some weeks it’s tough to be a gun blogger.
NRA blasts back at Holder over Stand Your Ground. Also on Salon, The Hill, and Politico. You have to admit that NRA can get the big names in media to bark on command at this point.
TalkLeft has some commentary on the Zimmerman verdict.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Clearly we’re dealing with a murderous monster! Saving people from overturned trucks is what racists do.
Radley Balko gets an article about the militarization of police in the Wall Street Journal. I’m glad this is getting mainstream attention. More on the related topic of over-criminalization here.
Durbin is going host a panel to “review” these SYG laws.
I’ve been surprised by how little press coverage I’ve seen of Bloomberg’s gun control bus tour, but they did generate a bit of press in Aurora, along with a counter-protest that also seemed to get reasonable coverage.
Massad Ayoob has more to say about the Zimmerman verdict. The original is here. Part II, III, IV, V. Five is particularly interesting.
Gun control advocates are disappointed in Rhode Island. Let’s hope they stay disappointed.
MAIG applauds an increase in ATF’s budget. I guess they have to savor the little victories. Hopefully ATF won’t use that extra cash to traffic more guns to drug cartels.
MAIG is also taking out a new ad campaign in the wake of the Aurora anniversary. Probably also to help with the recall elections too. I guess New York City residents don’t care much about having their tax dollars wasted on Bloomberg’s pet projects.
Antigun Colorado legislator has major rap sheet. What a shocker.
Confiscation? What confiscation? That’s just paranoia ginned up by the corporate gun lobby.
Divesting Gun Companies
Jacob notes that one of the Mayoral candidates for New York City is bragging about getting financial companies to divest from gun companies. I agree with Jacob that there could be other reasons. I would not be confident investing in firearms companies over the long term myself because there’s just so much I don’t know. While I agree that the market for shooting products is expanding, the big question in my mind is how much of it is permanent. Even though we all agree the number of new shooters is growing, is it growing fast enough to deal with the secondary market getting flooded once Obama is out of office, and hoarders start to divest inventory. Is it growing fast enough to deal baby boomers dying off and their collections hitting the market?
The Science Settles It
From an article on guns and suicide:
But researchers who study mental illness, guns and suicide say curtailing access to guns won’t necessarily reduce firearm suicides. Education and prevention may be a much better answer than stricter gun laws, they say.
They are pushing for education rather than laws, saying new laws won’t make much of a difference. It also notes they are getting help from the gun community. Funny how that happens when your goal is actually to solve problems rather than just take away our rights and freedoms. The only person who seems to insist gun laws would matter is a Joyce stooge.
Inflation
Being a somewhat shameless member of the species packus ratus, I’m finding myself going through a lot of old files that I’m trying to avoid moving back downstairs to my office. I keep literally everything, and I’ve decided that’s a bit much. But it’s fun looking back at how much more I spend on gas and food now. Eating out used to be a lot cheaper. Guns too. I found a credit card statement that had my first firearm purchase back in 2000, during the hight of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
This was for a Romanian AK and 1000 rounds of ammo, showing here:
I was not even really into shooting at the time. I bought it as a symbolic and perhaps obscene gesture to those people who said I shouldn’t own one. Today the ammo damned near costs that much if you can even find it. I miss those days. I have to give Barack Obama credit — he’s done a lot more to keep guns and ammo off of store shelves than any president in history.
Neat Graphic on Pennsylvania History
We found this during genealogical research. It shows the evolution of Pennsylvania counties from the founding of Pennsylvania in 1682 until the present county divisions that has remained in place since 1930. It also shows the claims Virginia, Maryland and Connecticut made over Pennsylvania. The border for Maryland was eventually settled by the Mason-Dixon survey, and settlers often fought low-level wars with settlers from Virginia and Connecticut over their claims. Connecticut claims were strong enough that many Revolutionary War service records for soldiers from what is now Western Pennsylvania are to be found with the State of Connecticut.
Speaking of the Mason-Dixon survey, here’s an interesting fact:
It was not the demarcation line for the legality of slavery, however, since Delaware, a slave state, falls north and east of the boundary. Also lying north and east of the boundary was New Jersey where, in reality, slavery existed, in limited numbers, until 1865. It was not until 1846 that New Jersey abolished slavery, but it qualified it by redefining former slaves as apprentices who were “apprenticed for life” to their masters. Slavery did not truly end in the state until it was ended nationally in 1865 after the American Civil War and passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
There was technically some measure of slavery in Pennsylvania until 1847, when slavery was completely outlawed. Pennsylvania passed its Gradual Emancipation Act in 1780, which didn’t abolish slavery, but which prohibited further importation of slaves into the commonwealth, and made any children of slaves freeborn. This was actually the model used by most of the northern states, but New Jersey was one of the last states to begin gradual emancipation, only starting in 1804, 24 years after Pennsylvania started the trend. The only state to do immediate emancipation was Massachusetts in 1783, and that was through a court decision. So it’s probably not entirely fair to single out New Jersey in this example.
Fixing the Legislative Process
I see this op-ed is a bit of a back-handed compliment.
It acknowledges NSSF’s legal concerns about the abuse of the emergency certification by lawmakers seeking to avoid accountability to concerned citizens, but then basically says that it is really only a problem when such a process is abused for their pet concerns – like restricting pictures available to the press.
It argues that while it may not be ideals, it’s ultimately okay to abuse it for screwing those damn gun owners since that’s clearly a real emergency and it’s not important to actually discuss details of gun laws that could land innocent people in jail.