The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Via Bruce, who links to this fine article:
When the state crosses that line and begins protecting adults from themselves, the people have lost their authority over the state. At once, there is no decision the state may not make regarding an individual’s personal behavior. The people have conceded that power, and it is no longer theirs.
Hopefully Governor Heineman can be convinced to veto the expansion of “gun free” zones in Nebraska to include universities and hospitals. Off limits places in Nebraska are already a mile long, and adding to them seems to be rather pointless.
“I’m not intending to anger the NRA,†the Wilber senator said, “but why on earth would you need a concealed weapon in a hospital?â€
Is there a chance Grandma will pull her IV out and try to stab someone with it?
Might there be a doctor lurking about with a sharp scalpel?
Karpisek made his comments as senators voted to add hospitals and college campuses to the list of places at which concealed weapons are banned by law.
Because there’s absolutely no good reason to bar people from carrying in hospitals. People have to get to and from hospitals too, and how many city hospitals are in atrocious neighborhoods? Ever visited Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia? Go visit, and tell me if you wouldn’t feel safer with a gun or an armed escort. These arguments could be used for any number of places, and they are not serious arguments. How well did Virginia Tech’s gun ban work for them?  These are feel good measures. It’s not serious policy.
A little bit about the NRA’s role here. The NRA has seemingly not produced any alert on the issue. It looks to me like someone is dropping the ball here.  The NRA state affiliate in Nebraska doesn’t even seem to have a web site, so it’s possible Nebraska isn’t a strong state for them. The state organizations are important, because the national NRA are often a lumbering bureaucracy, and are slower to act.
It looks like they tried to have the hospital language pulled from the bill, but it doesn’t look like they were successful.  If you read the final version of the bill, the language is still in there. Some are condeming this deal attempt at selling out.  I certainly understand where this view comes from, because it sucks to lose ground.
Sometimes in the political process you’re just going to lose, and there’s not much you can do. In that case you have a choice, you can either shout into the wind and have a really awful bill pass, or you can try to cut a deal and have a less awful bill pass. Sometimes the choice isn’t between winning and losing, but between losing and losing badly. This, pretty clearly, would be one of those cases.  The NRA tried to broker a deal to get the hospital language removed, and the legislature snubbed them and passed the bill as is. Even with a deal attempt, we still lost badly. Maybe it would be better not to do these kinds of things. It would certainly feel better.  But I’m not sure, from a practical point of view, it makes sense to take two steps backwards when it could be reduced to only one.
I won’t excuse the NRA for failing to rally the grass roots in Nebraska, without so much as even an e-mail alert. If the Governor does veto this measure, it will be because of the hard work of gun owners and bloggers in Nebraska and out who self-organized to apply pressure to Heineman’s office. I certainly hope they are successful.
You know you’re in need of some educating on the gun issue when you’re using The Gun Guys as an authoritative source. Most of us have better things to do than comment on anti-gun blogs, but sometimes it’s good to talk to the other side. You’ll probably never change the blogger’s mind, but for the sake of people who might stumble across the post, it’s important to point out errors and ignorance. Most people say they support gun control because most people have no idea what the gun laws currently are, and don’t know anything about them mechanically, their use in sport, self-defense, or other places.
It’s important to educate. It’s really the best way to help the cause.
I like this post by David Weigel over at Reason that suggests Fred Thompson is to Republicans what Barack Obama is to Democrats.  I think that’s right.
If it wasn’t for the Philadelphia City Council, and the cities inept media culture that doesn’t do it’s research and ask the hard questions, I wouldn’t have nearly as much to write about. Today’s stupidity is centered around amalgam fillings:
The City Council committee okayed a bill requiring dentists to inform patients when fillings contain mercury, and to buy devices that dispose of mercury from recovered fillings. The measure goes to the full Council.
I’m glad they didn’t go as far as banning them, but I’m not in favor of forcing dentists to tell people the fillings contain mercury with the idea that amalgam fillings are not safe. This will likely scare people into unnecessarily getting the more expensive composite fillings, and many people who live in the city could use the savings.
Amalgam fillings have been in use for more than a century, and study after study have shown them to be safe. Here’s what the ADA has to say:
Dental amalgam is a stable alloy made by combining elemental mercury, silver, tin, copper and possibly other metallic elements. Although dental amalgam continues to be a safe, commonly used restorative material, some concern has been raised because of its mercury content. However, the mercury in amalgam combines with other metals to render it stable and safe for use in filling teeth.
While questions have arisen about the safety of dental amalgam relating to its mercury content, the major U.S. and international scientific and health bodies, including the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, among others have been satisfied that dental amalgam is a safe, reliable and effective restorative material.
That’s good enough for me. We have laws being passed by City Council based on junk science and anecdotal evidence. Maybe they should hire a few fortune tellers and astrologers to advise on further laws.
You know it’s a slow day when I’m linking to anti-gun blogs, which, I have to say, are few and far between, and as best I can tell, mostly unread. Let’s start fisking:
The Virginia Tech shooting – 33 dead, 25 wounded – was another spark for the gun control debate in the United States. The National Rifle Association continues its campaign on the erroneous belief that the 2nd Amendment confers individual gun rights, and gun control advocates fight a rearguard action against some of the more heinous assault weapons (the linked gun can empty its 30-round magazine in 3 seconds).
Well, it does protect an individual right. Even the liberal constitutional scholars think so. The assault weapon you linked to has been illegal to import into the United States since 1968, as has any other foreign made rifle capable of fully automatic fire. Domestically made full-autos have been illegal to manufacture for civilian use since 1986. Possession of fully automatic firearms has been tightly regulated since 1934. You really don’t have any idea what an “assault weapon” is do you?
- If gun control doesn’t help reduce violence, then why was the Irish Republican Army asked to destroy its weapon caches as part of the peace process in Northern Ireland?
- If gun control doesn’t help reduce violence, then why has the United States insisted that the Iraqi Prime Minister disarm the militias?
The IRA is a terrorist organization.  Terrorist organizations agreeing to lay down arms, we all agree, is a good thing. But the IRA agreed to renounce violence and disarm itself. If the IRA had wished to keep murdering people and being terrorists, can you explain how they would have been stopped? The UK has had very strict gun control laws since the 1950s. How did the IRA get their guns in the first place?
Second, in regards to Iraq, we allow families to keep fully automatic weapons in their homes for self-protection. Â Yes, we’re trying to disband the militias who are fighting the elected government of Iraq, but gun control isn’t the primary method we’re using.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that guns are not a social good, lobbying groups like the NRA continue to advocate for “right to carry” or “concealed carry” legislation. While such legislation is unrelated to higher gun ownership rates, it also has no deterrent effect on crime.
What overwhelming evidence? Studies show that guns are used in self-defense from anywhere from 800,000 to 2 million times a year? And it’s also shown that concealed carry liberalizaion has had no effect in terms of increasing crime either.  So, living in a free society as we do, the burden is on you to show why the law restricting people’s right to defend themselves is necessary.
The facts show that gun ownership is correlated with gun crime, homicide, suicide, and violent deaths of children.
No, it doesn’t. Stating it doesn’t make it so.
OK, so it’s a really slow day. Hopefully I can find some better stuff to blog about.
If Professor Althouse can post beautiful pictures of flowers, then so can I:
Except Bitter’s camera doesn’t quite have the focus, and I don’t quite have the eye, that Ann Althouse has.
I thought the poppies turned out kind of nice though. I’m assuming these are garden poppies, or something, and not the kind you grow to make heroin.
These were our pictures from our weekend at Montecello. Jefferson was quoted as saying “to be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them ourselves”, which sounds like he had a bit of a survivalist streak in him.  I’m pretty sure this statement, combined with the fact that he was a strong believer in constitutional rights, and that his estate is growing poppies, would surely make him a terrorist in the eyes of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Every wonder how red dot sights work? Mr. Completely has the scoop.
From Insty, Fred Thompson says he’ll run.
Politician-turned-actor Fred Thompson plans an unconventional campaign for president using blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties, he told USA Today.
Thompson, a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, has been coy about his intentions with audiences, but made clear in an interview that he plans to run.
It’s really good news for people who don’t like any of the other three clowns currently vying for the nomination. Thompson is a bit more socially conservative than I would like, but as Glenn points out, there’s a lot not to like about Giuliani. Mitt Romney is a political opportunist of the first order. The only other serious candidate, John McCain, doesn’t believe in free speech, and being in the Senate for too long has melted his brain.
So Fred might not be my ideal candidate, but I like his style, and he’s certainly better than the other three. Run him against Hillary, and it’s not even a question. Against Obama, even less of a question. I’ll take him over Richardson too. I like Richardson, but his foreign policy ideas don’t appeal to me.
So Fred it is!
Rightwingprof brought up the issue of urbanization and how it affects Pennsylvania in one of the comments. I thought I’d expand on the issue a bit in terms of how it relates to gun policy in the commonwealth.
According to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania:
No doubt that Pennsylvania is already heavy urbanized and suburbanized, but we’ve still maintained pro-gun policies. There is a reason for this.
The political center of gravity of the gun control movement in Pennsylvania is unquestionably Philadelphia. There might be some sympathies for it in some of the other cities, but in any movement you have to worry about it’s center of gravity. Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania’s other big city, and tends not to be as solidly anti-gun. The suburbs of Philadelphia have never been, and still aren’t solidly anti-gun. There are a lot of pro-gun legislators in the suburban districts, and even a few in Philadelphia.
The real danger is rooted in the suburbs going Democratic and becoming more solidly anti-gun, and following the lead of the city. My district recently switched from a pro-gun Republican to a pro-gun Democrat, so we’re safe in that vain, but I also live in the most pro-gun suburban county.
One of the things that really worries me is Delaware County, which is where I grew up. My state legislator there, Tom Gannon, was a long time NRA A rated politician. This past election year he was pushing an anti-gun bill. Granted it was less onerous than a lot of other measures pushed, but it still had the potential to penalize honest gun owners. He still lost his seat to an anti-gun Democrat. Delaware County is traditionally solidly Republican, but that’s changing, and it’s the fifth most populous county in the commonwealth. Reasonably pro-gun Curt Weldon, who represented most of Delaware County and some of Chester County, was also defeated by rabidly anti-gun Joe Sestak.
Is our state making the slow march toward being an anti-gun state? It all depends on whether the anti-gun movement’s center of gravity can grow to encompass the suburban counties. Pennsylvania has 12.3 million residents, and Philadelphia and the suburban counties contain 3.85 million of those, which would be a formidable force in state politics if they all voted in a single block.
Philadelphia has been losing population rather rapidly though, but they are moving to the suburbs, and continuing to vote like Philadelphians. For at least the next decade, our gun rights are safe. Beyond that, I wouldn’t want to place any bets.