Shapiro’s Bloomberg Appeasing 80% Ruling

Attorney General is often a good stepping stone to Governor. So if you have those kinds of ambition, you’ll want an issue that isn’t liable to get a Virginia-sized revolt going, but that will please your party’s paymasters. Shapiro has found his issue. Bloomberg has a huge hard-on for stopping “ghost guns,” so if you ask me, that’s what this is about. It’s a good old fashioned moral panic among the right kind of people, and these days, thanks to social media, we do love ourselves some moral panic.

Granted, this is just about the most useless thing in the world: literally the only person this is going to deter is someone who has no ill intent. The only thing I can think of that’s more useless are “no guns allowed” signs where the sign is basically the security plan. Shapiro has decided that hunks of inert metal need to be regulated. I suppose you could throw it at someone and cause a decent head injury.

Shapiro’s opinion hinges on the definition in the UFA of “may readily be restored.” OK then. How much machining is needed to qualify? Notice he doesn’t say 80% lower. Is a block of aluminum now a firearm? I have literally no idea how to comply with this opinion. It’s essentially nonsense.

Attorney Josh Prince is of the opinion that if taken to court, it would not end well for the commonwealth, and I hope he’s right.

What Gun Control is About

The Curly Effect:

James Michael Curley, a four-time mayor of Boston, used wasteful redistribution to his poor Irish constituents and incendiary rhetoric to encourage richer citizens to emigrate from Boston, thereby shaping the electorate in his favor. Boston as a consequence stagnated, but Curley kept winning elections. We present a model of the Curley effect, in which inefficient redistributive policies are sought not by interest groups protecting their rents, but by incumbent politicians trying to shape the electorate through emigration of their opponents or reinforcement of class identities. The model sheds light on ethnic politics in the United States and abroad, as well as on class politics in many countries including Britain.

Gun Control is effectively being used for this purpose by the Democrats, and it’s probably not as destructive to a blue enclave as redistributive policies would be, since gun owners are generally less common in the upper classes, and those that are can afford to get around gun control laws anyway. Sure, you’ll loose skilled trades, but you can import replacements, and they will also conveniently vote the right way.

Maybe I’m Wrong

I’ve been saying the boogaloo will probably start in Oregon, but I might need to rethink that prediction, since it seems Oregon Democrats are smarter than Virginia Democrats.

Democratic Virginia Rep. Donald McEachin suggested cutting off state funds to counties that do not comply with any gun control measures that pass in Richmond. 

“They certainly risk funding, because if the sheriff’s department is not going to enforce the law, they’re going to lose money. The counties’ attorneys offices are not going to have the money to prosecute because their prosecutions are going to go down,” he said. 

McEachin also noted that Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam could call the National Guard, if necessary.

Call out the National Guard to enforce gun control? That’ll turn out well, I’m sure. That move totally has never sparked a revolution at any point in our past. These people are absolutely out of control.

So how does Governor Blackface think this works? How do you determine whose funding gets cut off? If a county prosecutor exercises discretion to not charge an otherwise law abiding person with violating these unconstitutional laws, does that trigger the funding cut? What triggers the funding cut?

Is it Politicians, or Are We Just Bad Parents?

I did not come from a hunting, shooting, fishing or any other outdoor sport household. I fished for sunny’s in our lake, but that was about it. My parents didn’t teach me any of that because they didn’t know very much to teach me. But if they had, I think I would have learned. This is an interesting article about how we’re becoming a “we used to,” society.

I have gotten to know a couple of my son’s friends, and it shocks me that here ,in a really rural area, surrounded by lakes and streams, most of them don’t even bother to go outside very much if at all.

I’ve certainly seen this: kids that grow up playing video games and doing not much else. They’d rather bury their faces in the phone than talk to anybody.

I don’t ever recall my parents strictly regimenting my TV watching, but neither my sister nor I grew up glued to a TV. My parents both did a lot. I don’t think if I had tried, I would have been allowed to glue myself to a TV or video game controller. I don’t know why we are letting our kids do that today.

I think we’ve gotten absolutely abysmal as a society in passing down our values and interests. I don’t think politicians are to blame for that. That’s something deficient in our parenting. What is it?