You have to think that Mike Bloomberg, by about now, is starting to regret his purchasing decision when it comes to Kathleen Kane, given that she’s been caught lying again about her decision to end corruption investigations against Democratic politicians. Instapundit has more on the case. I’d say her political career deserves to be over. She ought to even have an uphill battle ahead of her for re-election. I might even start to get optimistic about the prospects of her being accountable by voters given that even the Inquirer has seemingly turned against her. Hopefully we can be rid of Bloomberg’s Attorney General even if we end up suffering the loss of Tom Corbett in 2014.
Month: April 2014
CSGV’s “National Conversation”
The mouth foamers over at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence are objecting to Andrew Branca apparently speaking anywhere. His sin? He believes that the rule of law prevailed in the Trayvon Martin case. For a coalition of supposedly peace-loving organizations, the folks who run CSGV sure are a bunch of hate filled, narrow minded goons who try their best on a daily basis to shut down the free exchange of ideas. If gun control is such a good idea, why are they so afraid of debating the issues on their merits in an open and free manner?
On Witch Hunts
In regards to the whole Brendan Eich’s purging from the Mozilla Foundation, Tam notes that we’ve engaged in a good bit of that type of thing in our community. In fact, a very sharp analogy to the Brendan Eich situation is one that had its genesis with this very blog. But I do think it’s a bit different. If Eich had been the CEO of a gay dating site, and had spoken in favor of Prop 8 in the media, and then his donations to anti-gay candidates was uncovered, I would, of course, fully expect the gay community to eat him alive. They’d actually be fools if they let that slide.
What happened to Eich would be more the equivalent to us discovering that say, Roku’s CEO had once donated a few thousand bucks to a pro-gun control PAC*. That would generally not register very high on our giveashitometer as a community. What we tend to get really outraged over are members of the community betraying us; we don’t like turncoats. For people who just disagree with us, we’re more likely to argue to the point our opponents are ready sharpen a pencil to gouge out their ears, or defenestrate their Internet router, than we are to try to ruin their personal lives. I wouldn’t say we’re totally incapable of the same kind of mob mentality, but I’d say on the whole, most of us don’t have time for that kind of crap.
* Just using that as a hypothetical example. I don’t even know who their CEO is, let alone his voting or donating habits.
The Mass Stabbing We Feared
While some gun control proponents say that you don’t see mass stabbings, only mass shootings, a Western Pennsylvania high school just proved them very wrong this morning. I’ve waited for a little more to unfold in the story before commenting because it’s not an issue of guns or no guns, knife control, or even metal detectors at every door, as it seems that some people are already pushing while students are still undergoing major surgeries since they are in critical condition.
A local paper featured a comment by a senior that I thought was very telling on how the issue of violence as a whole is very complicated and not easily solved by one policy that focuses on the instrument used:
“Everybody was just freaking out,†he said. “It’s been a tough senior year. We’ve had a lot of fights in school — more than usual — and a suicide this year.â€
Mental health issues going unaddressed in the community? Check. Increased violent outbreaks as a whole? Check. Those won’t be fixed with gun control, knife control, or metal detectors. It sounds like there won’t be many easy answers for this community. Certainly, they are in our thoughts as this story continues to be investigated.
Latest on EP Armory 80% Lower Receiver
ATF has ruled that it is a firearm, despite the inclusion of a biscuit in the fire control well, which the rest of the receiver is injection molded around. You can find the determination letter here.
Unlike “castings” or “blanks” which are formed as a single piece so that a fire-control cavity has not been made, EP Arms uses the biscuit specifically to create that fire-control cavity during the injection molding process. As described in your letter, it appears that the sole purpose of the “biscuit” is to differential the fire-control area from the rest of the receiver and thus facilitate the process of making the receiver into a functional firearm. ATF has long held that “indexing” of the fire-control area is sufficient to require classification as a firearm receiver. Based upon the EP Arms manufacturing process, it is clear that the “biscuit” serves to index the entire fire-control cavity from the rest of the firearm so that it may be easily identified and removed to create a functional firearm.
Keep in mind that courts are generally highly deferential to agency determinations, so I wouldn’t give this much of a chance in court. But it’s noteworthy that ATF has “long held” that indexing constitutes creating a receiver. Where in the Federal Register can that be found? Can’t find anything in the code of federal regulations either. It’s probably found in other determination letters. This isn’t rule of law, it’s rule by bureaucratic whim.
“I just don’t see how people can grab a shotgun and rack it and stand on their front porch…”
Those words came from a New Jersey Police Chief who was appalled that, as his officers acted in a way that made a family believe their house was being broken into during a search of the surrounding property, a man grabbed his shotgun and went to check things out to make sure he and his parents weren’t in danger. Even though he never shot anyone, and he appears to have handled the situation reasonably when he believed the safety of his family was in danger, the police arrested him and wanted to put him away for 10 years.
Fortunately, a New Jersey jury acquitted him of the charges.
When someone linked this on Facebook, another person noted that this man was following the first few steps of our Vice President’s advice. He said you should grab your shotgun, load it, and go up to the door. The difference is that this man knew better to actually identify a threat rather than just shooting randomly, as the Vice President encourages people to do.
New York’s Softening Anti-Gun Views
Because I know that the NYC Mayor would hate to be considered a hypocrite who only serves his political allies when it comes to leniency, I’m quite confident that he will tell the NYPD to go easy the next time a tourist accidentally breaks one of the extreme gun laws. It would only be the right thing to do since he’s currently accusing India of having an “ulterior motive” as they enforce their strict gun/ammunition laws on a NYPD officer who was caught in illegal possession over there because he “forgot.”
And, I’m sure that Rep. Peter King who says that India’s desire to enforce their gun control laws is only a case that is “politically motivated” in order to extract retribution now understands the flaws in his gun control bill that would have given police the same incentives by banning anyone who is lawfully carrying from being pretty much on the same block as a government official.
Polling Shows Americans Favor Gun Rights
You would never have seen numbers like this in the mid-1990s. Most people seem to favor restrictions on felons and the mentally ill, but beyond that there’s sharp division. Even on this particular topic:
Just over half of Americans (53%) see a national registry of firearm owners as reasonable, while roughly half say the same of outlawing fully automatic firearms (49%). Fewer Americans favor limiting either clip sizes (41%) or the number of firearms an individual can own (34%).
So we’re not even at a bare majority on outlawing fully automatics these days? I remember when we were pushing 2/3rds of American supporting semi-auto bans (granted, likely out of confusion, but still) in the 1990s. The poll also still show that there’s a significant gap between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, though it’s worth noting you still have about 20% of Dems who aren’t too fond of more gun control.
If these numbers are real, you could very well see a major sea change in this issue once we’re rid of Obama.
Monday News Links
It’s Monday, and once again it’s time to free the tabs. I’m in the middle of working on a new blogging system with Bitter, so we can more easily share interesting stories, so she can share more of the editorial burden. There’s always a handful of stories I keep in the tabs that might illustrate some concept, or that merit more than just a link, and many that are just link worthy, because I don’t have much else to add. So on with not adding much:
Can we design around the SAFE act? Of course we can, but the result is the world’s ugliest rifle. Unfortunately for the antis, they are just as capable as what they banned. Dave Hardy also looks at the development of the pistol grip. Uncle: “They’re complying with the stupid law to show how stupid it is.”
While thousands of New Yorkers rallied outside against gun control, dozens of anti-gunners were inside calling for yet even more gun control in New York. But there’s no slippery slope or anything. That’s paranoid right-wing delusion.
Looks like someone let an NRA candidate questionnaire leak in Oregon.
If you can believe it, the California Democrats say the solution to Leland Yee running guns is to pass more bans. It’s hard to believe they can be this literally stupid. But if course that has to be the answer, because if people like Yee can still get illegal firearms, that calls into question the whole regime doesn’t it? Instapundit has more.
New study on concealed carry shows it deters murder. Meanwhile, in Chicago, crime continues to plummet, and we’ve had the first concealed carry holder defend himself. As Professor Reynolds is fond of saying: the science is settled!
The Tavor is selling well. It’s on my want list and I don’t really dig bullpups all that much.
“The only brave thing you did was leaving the house with that sweater.”
Scott Brown has a gun problem. Yeah, abandoning us sure helped him win re-election in Massachusetts, didn’t it? Sure as hell isn’t helping him now.
Lots of civil disobedience going on in New York too.
Civil Rights Victory in Kansas! This should probably dispel the myth that NRA doesn’t support open carry.
Mexicans exercising their fundamental human rights to self-defense and the tools to affect it.
Shannon Watts stigmatizes veterans with PTSD.
Proliferation of automatic weapons in Australia. Most of them home made. But they told me the idea that under very strict gun control, people would only make their own illegal guns, was right wing lunacy?
To be clear to fools and useful idiots like Bill Maher, it’s freedom I’m in love with, not the guns. If you believe in keeping something from me because it’s dangerous, you don’t really believe in freedom. You believe, in fact, that I’m an infant.
John Lott: Bloomberg’s fabricated numbers.
Josh Prince: “Does a PA Bar Applicant Have to Disclose that He/She Filed For or Obtained a License to Carry Firearms?”
As I noted last week, you can tell we’re getting back on track with moving forward because there’s more hysterical articles appearing in the media talking about blood in the streets if we get our way.
Off topic:
The Overprotected Kid. This is rather long, but worth reading. The play they are establishing in Wales is much like the play I grew up with, only way cooler. Much better than play dates and soccer practice.
Apple and Google’s wage-fixing scheme. I’m a long way off from suggesting tech workers need a union, but it would be nice to compete on a level playing field.
The rise and fall of professional bowling. Both my grandmother and mother were avid bowlers, and I used to watch professional bowling with my grandmother on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. I used to be an avid bowler myself, but a combination of time and a lack of places to bowl cheaply put a damper on it.
Pennsylvania’s Candidates Speak Out on Gun Control
Based on their 100% scores from Ceasefire PA, it appears that Allyson Schwartz and Katie McGinty haven’t met a gun control proposal they didn’t like. The “lowest” scoring Democrat on the ballot Tom Wolf who agreed with the gun control group almost 80% of the time. This marks a stark change from 2010 when the “lowest” scoring Democrat was against about half of the group’s policies.
I downloaded the report and will do a more thorough post on the exact issues the gubernatorial candidates want to see become the law of the land in Pennsylvania shortly. One of the delays in getting up a post about the top of the ticket statewide races has been watching the fallout after petitions went in. There have already been changes to the primary ballot with people dropping out, so I wanted to see what the playing field really looked like. Based on the quick look of the summary, pro-gun Democrats in the central part of the state need to start raising their voices – loudly – and start voting their gun rights if they don’t want to line up to turn them in, a serious policy proposal from a suburban Democrat in this state. This isn’t a “Philly” issue anymore. The anti-gun extremism is clearly spreading in Pennsylvania.