March 2016 – Shall Not Be Questioned

FireClean Sues Its Critics

It looks as if Andrew Tuohy of the Vuurwapen Blog is being sued in federal court by the folks at FireClean. I’ve read over their lengthy federal complaint. A good bit of it is their ridiculous patent covering vegetable oil mixes. Generally speaking, the deck is stacked against plaintiffs in these kinds of cases. I believe corporations are considered public figures in these kinds of suits, which means they have to prove actual malice, which means they have to prove Mr. Tuohy knew his statements were false or that he recklessly disregarded the truth. That’s why you see accusations in their complaint like “Tuohy published this disparaging statement knowing it was false, or with reckless or negligent disregard for the truth.” This is aÂ tall mountain to climb for FireClean.

But regardless of that, getting a suit dismissed, or prevailing in a jury trial requires hiring a lawyer, and given the amount of scientific data at play here, I wouldn’t imagine that’s going to be easy or cheap. There is no federal anti-SLAPP law, though there was one introduced in the House last year.

As for me, I keep it old school when it comes to lubes, so I wouldn’t buy FireClean anyway, but I definitely wouldn’t buy it after this. The other thing I believe FireClean may find out is that discovery is a bitch. The Vuurwapen Blog is raising money for it’s legal defense. I’d be sure to contribute. If FireClean wins this suit, the blogosphere’s free speech rights and our ability to criticize products without fear is going to be dangerously compromised.

How Do You Approach People You’re Dating About Guns?

I think either Bloomberg’s people, Soros’ people, or the White House, possibly all three, must be pushing women’s magazines to do pieces to turn women off of guns. Probably because despite their machinations, they know the trend is real, and it will doom them if it continues. Cosmo is the latest women’s mag to come out with an article to shame male gun owners, and presumably the women who date them.

Ah, if only the big GOP donors had paid attention to a wise blogger who keeps telling them to spend their money buying up women’s magazines instead of flushing their coin down crappy candidates. But I digress.

Looking at the things from the perspective of 42, I’d dump them. But I have some sympathy that in your 20s, you might do foolish things for a chance to get laid. We’ve all been there. I dated a few women who were not all that comfortable with firearms, though most of them respected me enough to know I would be responsible with them, and they were kind of OK. Even so, I ended up settling down with someone who was enthusiastic about the subject.

For those young guys out there, if a woman you’re dating ever expresses reservations about your use and ownership of firearms, because she’s worried you might snap and shoot her, dump her forthwith, because she does not respect you. I’m amazed anyone would date someone they fear might shoot them. That’s a troubled individual right there, and you’re better off alone, or with a woman of higher quality.

The “no guns in the home with kids” is pretty common, I had a few that were firm on that, but even that also presupposes you’re a fool who doesn’t know or understand how to store a firearm safely and responsibly. If a little education can’t cure that fear, dump her forthwith, for she does not respect you.

I also think it’s incumbent for women who are coming into this issue to speak out to other women about stuff like this. Notice that Cosmo found guys that can’t articulate their philosophy. They look shamed. While the women look confident and sure of their belief. This article is very anti-male, in addition to anti-gun.

Why Carrying Pepper Spray is a Good Idea

I’ve been an advocate of carrying defensive spray for a while now, because there are plenty of situations where you’re justified in using spray, but are not even close to a deadly force situation. Such a case recently occurred at a Donald Trump rally:

The link above has more video from different angles, including one where she admits she had it coming. She got sprayed as soon as she threw a punch. If one punches a hippie in the face and cause serious injury, the cops might feel they have to do something, even if it’s just questioning to sort out who did what. You’ll notice the cops escorted her out, but didn’t make any arrest. I’m not honestly sure who employed the spray. Defensive spray is a very low level of force, and far less likely to cause long term consequences for either party in an altercation. If you’re in a situation like this where both parties are alleging assault, you’re far less likely to end up in real trouble with spray as you would if you used a higher level of force.

UPDATE: Looks like it wasn’t the guy who was punched who responded with the spray after all. I’ve watched the video from a few angles, and I don’t see where she was justified in throwing the punch, but with the other guy doing it, it’s not as clear cut a case of self-defense. It’s going to be a case of he said she said.

Fundamentally Transformed

Bitter and I were talking this morning about how this doesn’t feel like the same country as it was a decade ago. It’s easy to blame Obama, given his penchant for trolling middle America, but I think the problem goes deeper than that. It’s easy to blame Cable News and Talk Radio, but those all existed for several decades, and it didn’t make people all that much nastier. Some might argue that it’s the result of the self-esteem generation coming of age, but I don’t think things get this bad this quickly with generational turnover.

Early on in the Trump phenomena, I read “It’s like the comment sections of the Internet came alive and decided to run for President.” I think that in a strange way that is actually true, because what I blame for the divisiveness and nastiness in today’s society is Social Media. Mark Zuckerberg is probably just as much to blame as Barack Obama. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is indisputably true. The polite term for this is the Online Disinhibition Effect. We’ve been dealing with this for longer than Twitter and Facebook have been around too, but what Twitter and Facebook do far better than any other predecessor is making it possible to keep in touch with your circles of friends, neighbors, co-workers and relatives without the need for face-to-face interaction.

Face-to-face you will probably be far more inclined to soften your views somewhat, and respond to non-verbal cues of the people on the other side of the conversation. They’ll also have a better read. The reason I think our politics is getting nasty is that we’re interacting with people face-to-face less, and online more. Almost everyone has an extreme view or two, and a many folks aren’t afraid to share it, rough edges in full view, to all their friends on Facebook. I think it’d probably go a long way to fixing political discourse, among other things, if we got off social media and started talking to people in person more often.

Carry at GOP Convention Was Never Going to Happen

The media has been going nuts over the story that a petition is being circulated to allow carry at the GOP convention. This was in the realm of “never going to happen,” and the reason why has just revealed itself. Even at the NRA Annual Meeting, where despite media lies you can actually carry, when the Secret Service comes to a venue with a candidate under their protection, there’s no carry and there’s security checkpoints at the entrance to the venue. You’ll almost certainly see that at work in Louisville this year.

Civil Rights Victory in Mariana Islands

The Second Amendment Foundation has won a victory in federal court, with a ruling that overturns the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) ban on handguns. Given that this was an outright ban, not much different from DC’s or Chicago’s, it would have taken some pretty convoluted logic, or just outright ignoring the Supreme Court, to argue that the ban could stand. CNMI is part of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

This can still be appealed, but given the direct congruence to Heller & McDonald, I doubt even the liberal 9th Circuit would overturn it. I agree with NRA-ILA’s analysis that warns not to get hopes up over the decision in Caetano v. Massachusetts. We have two votes on the Supreme Court for a robust Second Amendment. Two. Caetano made that clear. The only way we’re going to get more is to win elections.

UPDATE: I’m told the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund also contributed to this case.

Idaho Becomes 9th Constitutional Carry State

The Governor of Idaho, Butch Otter, has signed Constitutional Carry into law. It’s worth noting that this only applies to residents. So it’s really almost-but-not-quite constitutional carry. Still, it’s an improvement over the status quo, so I’ll take it. We’ve shown we can go back and improve things later. Bloomberg pulled out all the stops to defeat this bill, and we schlonged him. Pennsylvania was one of the pioneering states in shall-issue carry with a license, and we’re quickly being outdone by other states in this area.Â Arizona was the first big state with a big city to pass Constitutional Carry. We probably need another one, like Florida or Texas to pass it. Texas lagged behind the shall-issue licensed concealed carry movement, while Florida was a leader. Virginia wouldn’t be a bad pickup either.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 31

Happy Friday, and welcome to another issue of gun news. Even in slow weeks, there’s usually a lot of stuff that’s news, some of it is even interesting, but I just don’t have much to add. I don’t want the blog to go all Instapundit, or to bogart SayUncle’s style, but I do worry that some news gets stale by the time it ends up here. Here’s some hopefully not too terribly stale news:

Idaho now has a constitutional carry bill on the Governor’s desk. I’m not popping any champaign corks yet. Even Republican governors have vetoed these bills. If you live there, I’d call.

Now that Chris Christie is out of the race, this guy is probably screwed. Careful when you leave America.

The LA Times does a profile piece on NRA News’s Cam Edwards.

No anti-Second Amendment litmus test for Sander’s nominee for SCOTUS.

Long term, hunting is doomed if hunters don’t stop this shit.

Also, in Iowa, a silencer legalization bill hits the Governor’s desk.

Shocker: “the study has proven so flawed that the most influential members of the anti-gun research community have been forced to denounce it; lest the public realize the larger problems attendant to the entire field of study.”

Church joins fight for Nevada gun control ballot initiative. You know, if Churches are going to do this, maybe they should lose their tax exemption.

Well, the Supreme Court’s new stun gun case should have put an end to this argument: “Mark Hamill: You Have the Right to Bear Muskets, Only Muskets.”

I wouldn’t let this happen without a protest if I were a Michigan gun rights activist.

This gun control bill has gone down to defeat in Tennessee. MiguelÂ explains why it was such a bad one.

As a famous gun blogger likes to say:Â Like you and me, only better.

Remember, they are just peace loving people who want to save lives!

Eugene Volokh comments on Caetano.

I don’t know if this is NRA trolling, or it’s meant to be serious. If it’s trolling, kudos. It’s upsetting the hand wringers.

Should you put slogans on your AR?

They have to believe it’s about the money, because otherwise instead of fighting evil corporations, they are working to take away something important to their fellow citizens, which would make them horrible people, rather than heroes, and they want to think themselves heroes.

John Farnam on Open Carry.

Really, a decent holster or lockbox isn’t that expensive. lawyers are much more expensive:Â Charges have been filed against Jamie Gilt, the Florida mother who was shot by her 4 year old.

Blue on blue: Obama attacked from the left for being the best arms salesman ever.

Off Topic:

Remember, Republicans only believe in federalism when it benefits the opposition’s pet projects. They are fine with destroying federalism when it benefits their pet projects, like pandering to some good old fashioned law-and-order populism.

Campaign Against GOP Senators on Scalia Replacement Fizzling

The campaign to pressure Republicans to confirm Merrick Garland seems to be fizzling. As Glenn Reynolds noted, “Because everyone knows the Dems would do the same thing if parties were reversed.”

This whole business is depressing. If the Dems win the White HouseÂ in 2016, we’ll get worse, and that may be the end of a meaningful Second Amendment. I think we have two real votes for a meaningful Second Amendment on the court: Thomas and Alito. Scalia was the third, but he’s gone now. I didn’t think there was anything radical about the Alito and Thomas concurring opinion in the Stun Gun Case, yet it’s interesting that neither Kennedy nor Roberts joined it. My perception, I hope I’m wrong but fear I’m right, is that the reason there’s been no certiorari granted on any of the gun cases is because the Heller majority had two weak links. Heller and McDonald may very well be the best Scalia could extract from his colleagues who formed the five justice majority in those cases.

Our best case scenario is quickly shaping up to be President Trump picking Scalia’s replacement. I don’t know if that scares you, but it scares the hell out of me. Makes you think that maybe McCain & Romney weren’t such bad guys after all.

Is the Increasing Number of Women in Shooting a Myth?

Bloomberg’s propaganda branch can whine all they want about the General Social Survey. No one who’s been in this issue for any appreciable amount of time doesn’t believe more women are becoming gun owners. Gun shows around here used to be a sausage fest, and now you see the whole family out, women included. There are a lot more women at the NRA Annual Meeting exhibit floor than there was when I started attending yearly in 2007. I’m seeing more women members joining our club. They can argue it’s anecdotal all they want, but everybody who regularly deal with the ordinary gun-owning public is reporting the same thing.

The problem with the General Social Survey, and other surveys like it, is that it doesn’t measure actual gun ownership. It measures the number of people who are willing to tell a pollster they own guns. You can even see it in their graph: when gun owners are under attack, the numbers go down. When the crisis passes, they go back up. There are plenty of people who will not answer to a stranger they own firearms.

They are in denial because if they lose women, they lose their movement. Women have been the drivers of gun control, traditionally, and with more of them coming over to our side, it will put them in desperate straits. In truth, as long as Bloomberg is willing to continue single-handedly funding the gun control movement, it’ll continue to harass us and our rights, but without women, harassing us is about all they can hope for. They won’t succeed in their real goal, which is the destruction of those rights.