The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Eric has a pretty good read over at Classical Values. I’m always impressed with the depth that he looks into issues, especially in regards to our area.  In this article, he’s looking at a recent murder in a Chinese owned grocery; a robbery gone sour.
Wyatt Earp also has some thoughts on it.
I’m having to split stuff I find between here and SayUncle, so posts on here won’t be as heavy for the week. Later today, my series on Pennsylvania’s Uniform Firearms Act will continue.
I have to admit that I chuckled reading Robb’s post here, because it’s true. I think it’s because we all go through that awkward phase when we first start shooting, where we’re trying out a lot different things and figuring out what works and what doesn’t.  Perhaps some people never really get beyond that awkward phase.
I myself have a tricked out HiPoint 9mm Carbine that I never shoot anymore. I’ts from the awkward phase, complete with all the things Robb mentions, except that it doesn’t have particularly good optics. I quickly figured out all the gadgety crap didn’t really help with the fundamentals of shooting, so I shed it. I couldn’t shoot for shit then, and sometimes I can’t shoot for shit now. But I’m better than I was. I have a few guns I shoot regularly with optics, but I generally stay with iron sights.
This past Friday I took the PSL out to the range to shoot some 7.62×54 goodness at 100 yards. The target was a standard 100 yard large bore rifle target. I landed 3 in the 10 ring, 3 in the 9, two in the 8 and 2 in the 7, for a total of 87/100. I’m not one to be satisfied with a B when I’m shooting a rifle with optics! I’ve never been able to shoot the PSL all that well. I do much better with small bore shooting, which means I need to learn to be better at managing recoil. The PSL dishes out recoil in spades. It’s also difficult to shoot if you wear glasses, because of the rubber eyepiece on the Soviet era optics doesn’t fit nicely over glasses.  I have a tendency to wince or flinch when shooting the PSL. The flash from the mighty 7.62x54R fills the entire scope if you shoot it right. Good rule of thumb is, if you see flash, you probably didn’t flinch. I’m getting better at shooting this rather large rifle, but I won’t be happy until I can get all my shots in the nine and ten ring.
This weekend I learned from David Codrea that the Brady’s have recruited Comedian Lewis Black to encourage people to make videos in regards to how they feel about gun violence. I think David is correct that just submitting pro-gun videos to them wouldn’t do anything useful other than maybe making us feel better.
David suggests that he has some videos he made a while back, that he’d post online. I think it’s a great idea for us to make some video footage ourselves to make our own version of this. If anyone wants to submit a video to YouTube, send me a link and I’ll build a collection of them.
The Brady’s have been trying out new media. We’ve all seen their mistakes with their foray into blogging. Now they are playing to their more traditional strengths, using celebrity notoriety to mobile supporters, but with a new media twist. I think we ought to be showing we can match the Brady’s in the new media every step of the way.  What say you all?
By the way, I once attended a concert by Lewis Black in Upper Darby. I thought his bit on candy corn was really amusing. I was also legally concealing a 9mm pistol, and yet somehow didn’t manage to cause mass hysteria. Lewis Black may be a talented comedian, but he needs to understand that firearms can be used for good or ill, it depends on the person that’s possessing it.
Check out this article at MSNBC. In short, two officers show up at the scene of an accident. Find two gunshot victims yards apart on the side of the highway. Police try to help gun shot victims, and are fired on themselves. Officer gets wounded. Passers by show up, and are also are fired on. One passer by retrieves a pistol from his car, shoots gunman dead.
You gotta love Texas. Hat tip to Syd of Front Sight, Press
UPDATE: The article updated to say the suspect shot himself.
Orin Kerr makes some predictions of his own regarding DC v. Heller, and thinks the court will go a bit further in applying scrutiny to gun laws than this article would suggest.
UPDATE: Alan Gura, Attorney of Record for the Heller case, in the comments:
The facts are simple: the city bans guns.
If this were a “time place and manner” case, involving regulation rather than prohibition, it would have been an entirely different type of case. But it isn’t. The city claims guns are a social ill that should be prohibited. If there is a right to keep guns, the city’s policy preference is irrelevant.
Suppose the city abolished the exercise of religion, determining that religion poses an unacceptable challenge to the authority of the state, promotes sectarian strife, and is generally harmful because it undermines the public school’s educational mission with unscientific superstition. Such a law would be struck down as plainly inconsistent with the First Amendment, even if the government could establish to a judge’s satisfaction that religion has been known to have such deleterious effects, and that the legislature had a compelling need to address the risk.
And just imagine if trials were held to determine the current validity of constitutional provisions defining the structure or powers of government. We’re no longer the same society that initiated the income tax, or first elected a President every four years. Are those provisions suddenly subject to trial?
The Second Amendment is a duly ratified, operative part of the Constitution. People may disagree about how we should interpret the Second Amendment, but in our legal system, we do not have trials to determine whether it is desirable for portions of the Constitution to go into effect.
I don’t actually live in “flyover country” myself, living six miles northeast of Philadelphia.  Philadelphia is not part of flyover country. We’re drive past country. We’re the city, that if you’re driving through on the way to Washington DC from New York, you made a mistake.  We’re not flyover country, as in people look down on us from afar as they fly between the coasts, we’re “Don’t care country”, as in no one gives a shit about Philadelphia. It’s the forgotten city.
I think this blogger is probably making a satire on the title of the magazine, but for those of us in flyover country, a “Gun Dog” is another term of hunting dog, who swims out into the water and retrieves the duck dinner you’ve just plucked out of the air with your shotgun, or who faithfully points or flushes a grouse out of the brush. Anyone who’s ever owned a retriever can tell you how much they love jumping into the water to chase after things. Hunting dogs are true companions to hunters.
Garden & Gun is actually a pretty upscale magazine, geared toward the rather wealthy hunter types. You know the guys that bird hunt with the 15,000 dollar Perazzi 12 gauge, but are also into upscale home living lifestyle of gardening, cooking, etc. There’s a magazine for everyone in America.
Maybe there would be a market for Garden and Gun Dog, for those wealthy hunter types that garden, hunt and own gun dogs. It could have fun articles like “How to Keep Your Short Haired Pointer from Digging up Your Prize Roses”. Hopefully that wouldn’t involve a 12 gauge.
They are part of a Village Defense Committee.
Gotta love the old lady with the Kalashnikov in the pictures if you click on the link and take a look at all of them. I think they need to give these ladies some fatigues too, because typical women’s clothing in India is about as good as carrying a flashing neon light that says “Shoot me!”
If they tried to sell something like this today …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMqd5EQXD-g[/youtube]
… pants shitting hysterics would ensue faster than you could squeeze off a stick-um cap.