February 2014 – Page 5 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Shooting Sports Scoring Challenges

I’ve seen quite a few competitive shooters praising this column in today’s Shooting Wire about the methods of scoring that contribute to making watching a shooting competition about as exciting as watching paint dry.

It’s an interesting thing to consider because as much as the Olympic shooting sports are criticized from many shooters of the more modern shooting competitions as boring because of the shooting style, they do real-time scoring with graphic representations of the targets on screen during the television coverage. You get to see that pulled shot within seconds or stand amazed at the accuracy of a shooter you’re cheering. It makes it much easier to get involved as a spectator.

It’s an interesting challenge to think about for the various shooting sports. The beauty of having so many different types of sports at so many different levels of competition is that maybe this column will spur some clubs to try out different methods of sharing scores to see what works to improve the sports for spectators and even other shooters.

Jonah Goldberg on the “Heart of Liberalism”

If you haven’t read Liberal Fascism, I’d highly recommend it. It’s not real fire breathing stuff, but is rather an in-depth exploration of the intellectual roots of modern liberalism. In this article he mentions something on the same topic, in regards to guns:

Consider gun rights. Yes, conservatives believe in second amendment rights because they are in the Constitution. But they also value a culture of self-sufficiency, self-defense and a traditional understanding of individual sovereignty. (Relatedly, I think itâ€™s fair to say that hunting culture is inherently conservative and, very broadly speaking, anathema to much of liberal culture). Liberals dislike gun rights, because they detest gun culture (their Constitutional arguments in this regard have always struck me as nearest-weapon-to-hand debating points and rationalizations given their general disdain for Constitutional literalism in nearly every other regard) and see gun violence as a kind of public health issue, which means the State should have an unlimited license to deal with it. The right of armed self-defense also offends the Stateâ€™s monopoly on violence, and liberalism is a jealous guardian of State power.

One might wince at the two dimensional political spectrum, but this is quoted somewhat out of context. He goes on to explain why he thinks conservatism is more libertarian leaning than liberalism.

I appreciate well-thought-out philosophical political constructs, but I don’t think real people fall neatly into them in most cases. Most people either don’t put that much thought into their political philosophy, or have strongly held beliefs that move across the spectrum of liberal-conservative-libertarian-authoritarian. There are also many legitimate pragmatists out there, or people like me who value philosophical political constructs, but have a strong pragmatic streak as well.

Feeding the Maybe Not-So-Tin-Foil-Hat Conspiracies

I have to agree with Glenn Reynolds that perhaps the greatest “achievement” of this Administration is making crazy conspiracy theories seem less crazy. This begs the question:Â what the US government needs 600,000 AK-47 magazines for?Â As Clayton notes, that seems awful excessive if your intention is only to arm Syrian rebels. Clayton speculates that perhaps the goal is to dry up the civilian supply to make them more expensive. Previously I’d say that was tin-foil hat territory, but with this crowd, I’m not so sure.

Under Attack Again in Delaware

The Democrats in Delaware are looking to come at us again, this time at preemption. For a state that’s solid blue, and controlled by Dems, the First State got off rather light post-Newtown, which I’m sure is very unacceptable to some, especially Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden. Nothing like trying to make up for daddy’s federal embarrassment on the backs of Delaware gun owners.

It’s really not good news. The proposed House Bill would repeal preemption only for Wilmington. The Senate bill would repeal preemption in Delaware entirely. I think it’s very important to follow the link and get involved if you live there.

South Carolina Passes Restaurant Carry

You can find the bill here, which was signed into law by Governor Nikki Haley this morning. It’s pretty much the basic law: you can carry in a restaurant, but you can’t drink, and restaurant owners can post prohibiting guns. The law also eases training requirements and some easements for transport.

Now if they’d just improve their reciprocity law to honor non-resident licenses of reciprocal states, we’d be set.

Obama Nominates Anti-Gun Surgeon General

Emily Miller reports on the nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy. Well, to be fair, I’m not sure we’ve had a pro-gun Surgeon General. But some of the positions taken by his organization are troubling, nonetheless. Though, does anyone really give a crap what the Surgeon General says anymore? They are basically political hacks. Koop was the only Surgeon General I think that had any notoriety, and he was still an insufferable busybody. I’m not sure even if he’s confirmed, it’ll change the state the debate much.

Opposing Gun Control in Oregon

Several readers have sent me this, which has been making its way around the blogosphere. It’s worth watching, if you haven’t seen it yet:

Is it just me, or does that guy look an awful lot like Johnathan Rhys Meyers who plays King Henry VIII on the Showtime series “The Tudors.”

Tuesday News Links

If you live in Eastern Pennsylvania or New Jersey, bend over, because here it comes again. Aunt Em! Toto! It’s a Nor’easter! it’s a Nor’easter! (that’s Naweasta for those of you in New England). I suppose this god awful winter just wouldn’t be complete without one. One disadvantage to having an office in the middle of the hobby farming and horse breeding bedroom community in Chester County is that it’s hard for people get in during any inclement weather, so this winter has been a real killer for us. But that’s not to say there hasn’t been gun news:

Rifle OC isn’t about attention whoring. No sir.

Like you and me, only better.

This is how such things would be handled in a more ideal world.

We now have a SAFE act legal AR-15. I’m sure the removal of the pistol grip will make it less deadly. The Coalition Against Gun Ergonomics will no doubt be pleased. Could we file suit against SAFE using the American’s With Disabilities Act? Anyone in NY have arthritis?

An exodus from MAIG. That’s OK, since they don’t seem to be big on maintaining a list of members these days. That’s been nothing but a boon for us when some of them inevitably get convicted of crimes.

Andrew Cuomo is trying to buy some gun votes by spending money on ranges. Hate to tell you, buddy, but ranges are useless when you banned all the guns that were popular.

Shot detection seems to be a waste of money.

There’s a new book in the works about guns and the civil rights movement. The carefully constructed progressive narrative is coming apart. Groups like CSGV, MDA and the increasingly irrelevant Brady organization have to be coming apart at the seams.

Concealed Carry on Campus in Idaho introduced. Clayton is looking to organize some students.

Restricting guns to prevent suicide? Clearly what we need are more background checks.

Ohio Court of Appeals panel rules that the Second Amendment applies to carrying firearms in cars.

Another Third Amendment case. For two hundred years we’ve had one or two Third Amendment cases. But thanks to the modern police state culture that is overtaking American law enforcement, this is the third such case I’ve seen as of late.

Restricting handgun possession to those 17 and under passes strict scrutiny in Louisiana.

I was hoping to have more to say about a federal judge upholding Connecticut’s new gun control laws, but I just don’t. It’s the intermediate scrutiny two step again… with judges treating the Second Amendment as an inferior right.

“Nothing ails the pain a family has to be suffering due the accidental death of a child like sending a parent to jail.” We’d never think about doing such a thing with a parent who left a gate open by accident on a pool, despite pools killing far more children each year.

Joe notices CSGV’s flexible fundraising goals. Their finances were not in the best of shape pre-Newtown. I suspect they had a boot post-Newtown, but people’s attention has moved on since.

Bob Owens highlights some epic ignorance on parade.

NSA spying undermines separation of powers.

Caleb is upset that NAGR highlights a sausage sack holsterÂ in one of its ads.

Are SoCos saving liberalism?

Lineage & Guns

As most of you know from occasional posts, Sebastian & I have been into studying family history since last summer. I joined Daughters of the American Revolution last fall based on the research, and I’m finding even more patriots with practically every family line that I open up. But just this morning, I found I have a new goal. I want to find a gunsmith in my family tree. Why? Because of this qualification for designating a patriot in DAR:

Those who rendered material aid such as furnishing supplies with or without remuneration, lending money to the Colonies, munitions makers, gunsmiths, etc.

I’ve found a politician (state representative from Kentucky in 1800) who is the grandson of a sometimes hard-to-prove female patriot, several refugees fleeing religious wars whose families ended up supporting independence, and a patriot documented as supplying whisky to the troops, but no gunsmiths or munitions makers for the Revolution yet. And you know I want one if I can find one.

So, this is a bit of a bleg to anyone who knows about quality historical research. Where is one likely to find sources on gunsmiths & munitions makers from that era? I assume my best bet is to try and find wills and other legal records that may make mention of an occupation, but I wanted to ask if there were potentially other sources since I know this is an audience that loves guns, gun rights, and history.

I’ve got known patriots and family lines in Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina during the war. Afterwards, some ended up in Kentucky simply because that’s the county they were in when it was divided and then those broke off to become a state, so gun makers in those areas are more likely to be of value for this purpose.

Self-Defense Calibers

Exurban Kevin notices that what’s considered to be a good self-defense caliber has been getting ever smaller. When I first started carrying, back in 2002 or so, .380 was considered where self-defense rounds started, but 9mm was the generally popular self-defense caliber. Then everyone said it had to start with a .4 or it wasn’t good enough. The .40S&W became pretty popular, especially among law enforcement. Now we’re back to the smaller calibers being popular again. My guess is because more people are carrying, and it’s just much much easier to carry and conceal smaller firearms. I tend to think anything is better than harsh language. The best caliber is the one you’ll carry. A pocket .380 you have is better than the .40S&W left at home.