Bearing Arms is reporting that the Connecticut State Police are refusing to help firearms manufacturers comply with their new gun control law. I think the response should be to withdraw from the Connecticut market, including law enforcement. Then we’ll see if they want to do their jobs.
Month: February 2014
Happy Ice Storm
We were supposed to get more of the white stuff, but it’s turned into a full on ice storm! Power is out and we’re running on generator. The blog will remain up as long as I have gasoline and the fiber stays on. We already had one large branch come down. My UPS equipment is less than thrilled with the output of the generator, but they are taking it most of the time. You might have noticed a brief period of downtime earlier, as the outage happened when we were asleep and the UPS drained down before we could fire the generator.
UPDATE: Power came back just as I went out to get more of the precious juice for the generator. Everything is back to normal now, except for the fact that I have several large tree branches down in the yard.
Video Day: FEMA Camps Edition
Watch as college students in Southern California sign a petition to send us all to the FEMA camps:
h/t to Dave Hardy.
Video Day: Charlton Heston at the 1998 NRA Annual Meeting
This was held in Philadelphia. I can’t imagine NRA hosting an Annual Meeting in Philadelphia today. I did not go, because I wasn’t into guns back then, but I thought it was interesting that it got Ed Rendell to say something nice about the NRA. I was surprised this video was out there:
Video Day: Toying With a Sniper
I came across this on Facebook last night, and I just realized I can’t embed it. Syrian rebels toying with a sniper. Not a very good sniper if he’s falling for it. Each shot risks giving away his position. If the rebels aren’t busy trying to flank him, find out where he’s hiding, and take him out while he’s distracted with the dummy, they are dumber than he is.
Video Day: Dana Loesch on “The View”
I have a few videos building up in the tabs, so I thought I’d do a video day. The first video for today, accompanied by an article, is Dana Loesch’s appearance on “The View”
I thought she handled it well. After the big stink the Demanding Moms, all she had to do was avoid breathing fire.
Supporting the NRA Takeover of Harrisburg
Okay, so maybe the NRA hasn’t actually taking over Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but they did take over the sportsman’s show in Harrisburg after the last producers banned semi-automatic rifles.
This article features reporters who talked to attendees, and the response to NRA’s involvement appears to be overwhelmingly positive. One man said, “I’m happy the NRA took over,” even though one of the top things he was looking for at the shows included ATV displays. Another attendee told reporters that since NRA took over the show, it appears more organized and functional for consumers to get around the facility.
Looking at their photos, several of the aisles look nearly as packed as the busiest weekend days of the NRA annual meetings. That’s impressive. I hope that the rough winter weather doesn’t impact attendance too much. Hopefully, word will continue to get out that it’s a great event under new management and numbers will continue to climb.
New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Doubles Membership
The wages of the SAFE Act. Now they are the largest NRA state affiliate organization, having surpassed Texas:
Today, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association (NYSRPA) is proud to announce that its membership has nearly doubled since the passage of the NY SAFE Act. NYSRPA President Tom King said, “Our membership has increased from (22,000?) to 41,000+ individual members in the space of one year. This is an extraordinary jump, and when you factor in the clubs and other organizations that are also members, we are a force to be reckoned with.†King noted that NYSRPA, the nation’s oldest National Rifle Association (NRA) affiliate, is now the largest, surpassing the Texas affiliate. King, an NRA board member, said he looks forward to drawing attention to this when he meets with his Texas Colleagues at the next NRA board meeting.
King cites the passage of the NY SAFE Act as the primary reason for the exponential increase in membership. “The NY SAFE Act is one of the most egregious assaults ever perpetrated on the Constitutional Rights of New Yorkers and people are fed up. I would point out that the governor recently said that advocates for the Second Amendment, traditional marriage, and the right to life, have forfeited their right to residency in this state. This is simply outrageous, and while we are strictly a Second Amendment advocacy organization, I can appreciate other organization’s consternation at such hubris.â€
The NYSRPA is currently in the process of litigating against the NY SAFE Act. “We had a recent decision in the Western NY federal judicial district that bodes well for our cause,†King. “The court ruled that the seven round limit on magazine capacity violated the Second Amendment and this decision has left the door open for a favorable ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court. Said King, “NYSRPA has already spent over $450,000 in legal fees and is prepared to bear whatever cost is required to defeat the NY SAFE Act. To quote the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ‘we shall overcome’.â€
Let us hope that their lawsuits find some success. I’ll be writing more about some activity in regards to lawsuits later, when I have a chance to review some opinions.
NJ Trooper on Christie Security Detail Arrested in Hamburg, PA
Apparently he stands accused of kleptoing himself about $267 bucks worth of shooting supplies from Caleba’s. But get this:
“Carvounis said he was on the governor’s security detail,†Tilden Township Police Chief William J. McEllroy told New Jersey Watchdog. “He said he makes $140,000 a year, and he’s afraid of losing his job.â€
140 large a year? I’m in the wrong line of work! I’d say he likely has a compulsion he could use some help with. Apparently he tried to get some “professional courtesy†out of the local constabulary, but to their credit they didn’t take him up on it. I’d be OK with ARDing him if he gets some help with his problem, though.
Amnesty Light
I’ll be honest, I’d personally be fine compromise in theory, but I suspect it’s bad politics for the GOP:
“Illegal immigrants, assuming they have lived here for a decent period of time and have not committed a felony, can have amnesty, but they can NEVER be allowed to vote. They can do anything else that is legal, but if they want to vote — or run for office or practice law in our country, as just happened in California — they must return home and go through the normal immigrant application process, however long that may take until they have citizenship.â€
I’ve posted on this before. Most of the arguments against this idea were the slippery slope, namely if we give them a limited amnesty now, they’ll just vote in a full one next chance they get. I believe in slippery slopes, and agree it’s no fallacy. Gun control is absolutely a slippery slope. Here’s what I look at:
- Is the interest pushing for half the cake now in hopes of getting the whole cake later. Well, the Democrats certainly want them to have the vote, because they want a more solid majority, but it’s less clear the Hispanic community honestly cares all that much about the vote, and polling also shows they care about border security too. The political elites and activists are likely to keep pushing for the vote, so I think this plays in favor of the slippery slope.
- Does the half cake strengthen our opponents hand any, or make their arguments better? I don’t really think this changes the rhetoric at all. In contrast to say, accepting the NICS system under Brady, which I think weakened our hand in arguing that expansion is a bad idea. I’m not sure this plays as well with the slippery slope. If anything, I think this would weaken their hand to the near future.
- Does the half cake take people out of the issue in terms of fighting further encroachments. Absolutely. I think a lot of people will walk away from the GOP if they push through a half-cake amnesty bill. This would make it much easier for the Democrats to pass the rest of the cake when they get back into power.
So while I think the deal, in theory at least, would be acceptable to me, I think it would only contribute to the further destruction of the GOP at the cost of the Democrats winning several more election cycles. I’m not convinced anyway, that amnesty is the key to winning the latino vote. I think Republicans are pushing for limited amnesty largely because business interests want it, and because they have K street consulting firms whispering in their ear that this will allow them to win the latino vote.