Author: Sebastian

Soccer Mom Loses LTC

Everyone and their brother has been e-mailing me this story.  I would have covered it yesterday, but things have been extraordinarily busy:

Officials in Pennsylvania have revoked a woman’s concealed-weapons permit because other parents complained that she was carrying her loaded handgun at her daughter’s soccer games.

Meleanie Hain says she’s fighting the revocation by the Lebanon County sheriff.

Hain lost the permit and got a warning from local soccer officials after a game on Sept. 11.

Sheriff Michael DeLeo says openly carrying a weapon to a youth soccer match shows a lack of judgment.

Well, that’s all well and good, except for the fact that openly carrying a firearm is legal in Pennsylvania, and a sheriff’s perception of judgement isn’t a reason to yank an LTC.  We’ve been through this before in Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania is technically listed as a shall-issue state, but in reality we are may-issue.  The sheriffs exercise an extraordinary amount of discretion in issuing and revoking licenses, and that’s a discretion that’s going to be taken away if they keep insist on abusing it.

Everyone in Pennsylvania who carries regularly should get themselves a Florida license.  It’s good in Ohio and Delaware, and Florida is truly shall-issue, and they won’t revoke unless you commit a crime or violate one of the enumerated conditions for having the license.

UPDATE: Dustin beat me to this one.

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A Quick Unscientific Sampling

On the way in from work, spotting on people’s lawns in the Fort Washington/Blue Bell area of Montgomery County, PA:

  • 1 Obama Sign
  • 5 McCain Signs
  • 1 Allyson Schwartz Sign (Democrat Incumbent Congresscritter)
  • 3 Kate Harper signs (Repub. State Rep)

Based on signage, things are looking good for McCain at least in some parts of the Philadelphia suburbs.  Based on signage in general, I think McCain has the edge, and that’s a good sign of where the passion is, even if it’s not scientific.

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Obama Silencing Voice of Gun Owners

Barack Obama’s campaign is trying to silence the National Rifle Association’s latest ad campaign using strong arm tactics by threatening them with possible legal action if they run the ads:

Failure to prevent the airing of “false and misleading advertising” may be “probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility” Cosmopolitan Broad. Corp v. FCC, 581 F.2d 917, 927 (D.C. Cir. 1978).

So basically, stop running NRA’s ads, or your broadcast license could be in jeopardy.  They detail the WaPo’s FactCheck.org repetition as proof.  This is Chicago politics at its finest folks.  If you can’t win fair, win dirty.  This is not how a free society is supposed to function.  This is not the kind of man I want leading my country.

Besides, every bit of what NRA claimed is true.  It’s the Obama campaign and the news media that’s lying.

UPDATE: Bitter has more.

UPDATE: Instapundit links with a lot more.  In other news, I really need to upgrade my server hardware.  Turns out my little wireless router can’t handle an instalaunch too well.

UPDATE: Want to help defeat Putinesque tactics like this, I would encourage folks reading to join the NRA, and contact your local NRA Election Volunteer Coordinator.  We EVCs are working very hard to find people to help us defeat Barack Obama in November.

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ParaUSA Donates Gun to GBR III

ParaUSA is donating a gun to GBR III to be used to help raise money for Project Valor IT.  It’s a good cause, and a good gun.  GBR is shaping up to look pretty good this year.  Unfortunatly, a scheduling conflict with the election volunteer stuff I’m doing is preventing me from going this year, but that leaves more of a chance for someone else to win.  Good luck to all the attendees.

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Wither the NFRTR

SayUncle has a link to some very interesting proceedings on the Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, which is the database of all the Title II firearms that are circulating in the country.  You know one way they could clean up the database?  Have a general amnesty.  It’s within the Attorney General’s powers to do this.  Advertise that anyone with an NFA firearm can either confirm they have an existing NFA firearm in the NFRTR, or if it’s absent, be able to register it.  Sounds fair to me.

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Electioneering

Bitter did some phone banking for GOP candidates last night for our county.  I am going to be talking to folks at my club about a few things election related.  I also need to start reaching out to forums.  Here’s a problem we have:

  1. Most young people aren’t tied to land lines.  Phone banking is only really reaching voters over 40.  In fact, a lot of traditional outreach we do as gun owners is only really reaching an older demographic.  Granted, these are typically your largest and most reliable voting base, but we also need to reach young people or we’re in trouble over the long term.
  2. The Internet is a great way to reach young people, but they are geographically very dispersed.  I can reach a lot of young people through this blog, I can even reach a lot of Pennsylvanians, but I can’t reach very many people in my own county, which is where it counts for having the most impact.

I’m actually fairly concerned that people getting most of their information and organization from the Internet will actually hamper some forms of traditional political activism, because while it’s very easy to organize on the Internet, it’s hard to organize locally.  One of the reasons the Religious Right in this country is such a powerful voting bloc is because they have one of the few localized community organizations that people are still participating with in large numbers: churches.

Our churches are the gun clubs, the gun shops and the gun shows.  We need to think up ideas on how to translate Internet activism into local political action, and we need to reach our churches.  Otherwise you can’t defeat anti-gun incumbents with pro-gun challengers and support pro-gun incumbents, which I’ve become convinced is basically the core of the gun rights movement’s political power.  To the extent that gun rights becomes a political movement in cyberspace only, I think it will become ineffective.  If we can’t figure out a way to use the Internet as a tool to organize locally, we’re doomed.

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Why Run Radio Ads on Rush?

Responding to this AR-15.com thread:

I have been hearing anti-Obama ads on Rush Limbaugh today. Isn’t this a waste of our donations? If you are listening to El Rushbo, you aren’t voting for Obama, and you aleady support gun rights.

It’s not really that simple.  For one, I don’t know how extensively Rush covers Second Amendment issues.  I know he’s sympathetic, but does he cover all the bases?  AHSA and a lot of the Blue Dogs have been doing everything they can to fool hunters and shooters into thinking Obama supports the Second Amendment.  There may actually be people in Rush’s audience base who need to be reached with that message, even if it’s only to give them another reason to get out in November to vote against him.

It also never hurts to frame an argument that people can use when they talk to people who might not have gotten the message.  There is value in someone saying “You know, I heard on an NRA ad that Obama tried to ban hunting ammunition.” to a friend who might not have good information.  That’s probably the greatest value in preaching to the choir.  NRA goal in advertising is to get the information out there, and get people involved with gun rights.  Rush Limbaugh’s audience is likely to be receptive to that, which makes them a good target for advertising.  Saying that NRA shouldn’t be advertising on Rush is like saying as an NRA Election Volunteer Coordinator, I shouldn’t be canvassing gun clubs, gun shows, and gun stores with anti-Obama literature. A good fisherman casts his net where the fish are.

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Quote of the Day

From Protein Wisdom:

I’ve noted before that we are now fighting an all out ideological war for the survival of the democratic republic. In fact, I’ve been making this same argument for years now: when the press, under the cover of “objectivity,” is allowed to function as an advocacy arm for a particular ideology and its titular representatives, what follows is a necessary skewing of facts — and a carefully constructed attempt to frame “stories” with “lessons” that the public will interpret “correctly” (according to those attempting to teach the lessons from the perspective of their own personal advocacy).

Media advocacy for Obama is higher than any candidate in recent memory.  It’s becoming worse than mere bias, and crossing into the realm of the media actively campaigning for The Lightworker’s ascension.

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