Sebastian – Page 168 – Shall Not Be Questioned

On the 226th Anniversary of Ratification

Dave Hardy notes was done with the expectation there would be a Bill of Rights, which they hoped would contain:

XI. Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.

XII. Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion.

Now the other side, particularly Professor Adam Winkler, would be fond of jumping on the last part as evidence that our founders supported gun control. I don’t think that has ever really been in question, but let’s not pretend that there was, in colonial times and in the Early Republic, anything resembling what modern gun control advocates propose.

The latest book out on this subject, which I mentioned here and am in the process of reading, relies upon the fact that in the debates, the founders were singularly unconcerned with arguing the self-defense angle to keeping and bearing arms. This is mostly true, butÂ they did talk about it, and some states even have it enshrined in their RKBA provisions. You can certainly make a compelling narrative that the founders were only concerned with the distribution of military power, and not self-defense, but it requires overlooking some very glaring evidence that the right was indeed meant to protect private self-defense, as well as the militia as an institution.

Some News Links, You Can Has!

Still billing at the client this week, so blog time will still be tight this week. I hate having to give you guys the short shrift, but if our clients didn’t have crises they needed to be saved from, we wouldn’t have business. At least the commute is pretty good. The client is in New Jersey, only about 25 minutes away on a route that doesn’t clog with traffic during rush hour. My normal office, which I go to twice a weekÂ isÂ an hour away with no traffic. Except that there’s rarely no traffic.Â Today I’m working from home so I have a bit more schedule flex, so I can give you a news dump:

Harry Reid might bring up gun control again in the Senate. Go for it Harry. I’d suggest right before the election.

Democrats in pro-gun states don’t want any help from Gabby.

Hey, it turns out gun control wasn’t so popular in Colorado after all. Now the Guv’s saying his staff made him do it.

Why are anti-gunners so violent? I don’t like the OCT people either, but I don’t wish death on them.

The tin foil hat crowd is going to have a field day with this one. He must have discovered too much, like how the CIA is training mass shooters, or something like that.

Miguel describes the CSGV philosophy quite accurately.

Civil Rights victory in Florida.

Turns out the disparity in school blocking software between pro and anti-gun sites is because people actually read pro-gun sites.

A new gun blog. Not often I get to say that these days. I don’t know if fewer people are bothering, or it’s just harder for them to come to my attention.

Andrew Cuomo’s troubles continue. A lot of his troubles are coming from the left, but gun control isn’t going to save him.

Remember, where the government thinks gun ownership is a privilege, it’s probably most wise not to screw around.

Another bill that Chris Christie needs to veto, an ivory ban. No grandfathering. Even mammoth ivory would be banned. We must do what we can to save the mammoths!

I think the idea of an enhanced permit to carry is OK for some states. In others, I’d worry it would immediately start the discussion of why it wouldn’t be a good idea to just require it for everybody. I’d be wary of it in Pennsylvania. This state is not as pro-gun as people think it is.

Remember, this is what our opponents think of us.

Open Carry in Texas is already being used in Florida as a reason not to legalize it there.

Throwing good money after bad in Illinois. Most politicians want to be seen as “doing something.” What they count on is that voters won’t look hard enough to realize that “something” is complete bullcrap. Sadly, in most cases, this works.

Preemption in Florida is working. We’re trying to get a similar law passed here in Pennsylvania. Our bill doesn’t go as far as Florida, but it does give incentives for local communities to get their illegal ordinances off the books.

A review of the latest book disparaging the Second Amendment. I have a copy, and I plan to review it as soon as I finish it.

Salon and hew and haw all they want, but the media had to backpedal from their earlier statements. Everyone knows when you use school shootings in a certain context it implies a mass shooting. It was dishonest, the way it was presented, and Everytown got called out on it.

Judge dismissed charges against a Maryland homeowner who shot a home invader. They argued he should have called 9-1-1. It never should have even gotten that far.

High-capacity, 1855 style.

Bloomberg is Buying Calls to Congress, and It’s Working

What do you do if you’re Mike Bloomberg and Everytown, and have a boatload of money but not really any substantial grassroots? Well, you buy phone calls to Congress:

The majority of the money paid for the call goes to a gun safety movement called Everytown. Sometimes, organizations benefitting from a campaign (like Everytown) make the calls themselves, but individuals can also sign up to become paid callers for campaigns, garnering a base rate of $1 per call.

Unfortunately this is working. NRA is currently noting Congress is only hearing from their side. I think there’s a tendency among gun owners to think if we got through Sandy Hook, this latest wave of mass shootings shouldn’t be a concern. But that is unfortunately not how this works. The other side has been fired up, in my opinion through a combination of the latest mass shootings and the nonsense going on in Texas. They money being dumped into the issue is all helping as well.

A lot of gun owners have no idea how tenuous this stuff can be. The gun control crowd made a lot of mistakes after Sandy Hook. They’ve learned. They are going to be less ambitious, less bombastic, and will build support slowly going forward. They will keep at this until they get what they want. A Republican Congress is not a guarantee nothing gets passed. They will turn on us in a heartbeat if they think they’ll get away with it. We have to call.

SeeÂ www.nraila.org/writeyourrepsÂ or call 202-225-3121. We benefitted greatly in the past decade by there being no money in the gun control movement. Bloomberg can single handedly dump more money into the issue than all of us combined. We have to pay mortgages and feed families. The only thing we have he can’t compete with is our collective voices, but we have to exercise it to make a difference.

Who Needs a Gun?

I don’t know about you, but I’d certainly feel safer with my S&W 629Â on my hip, loaded with .44 Magnum soft points. I’d hate to experienceÂ this kind encounter with nothing better than frantically searching for a rock, or hoping if I couldn’t outrun the bear, I could at least outrun my jogging partner.

Sadly, a .44 revolver is not an option for Canadians. Spray would have probably been enough to dissuade this bear, in the absence of a firearm, though, and I don’t think even Canada restricts bear spray. Don’t go out into the woods unprepared.

Juggling More Flaming Torches

Today I started an engagement at a new client, so my blogging schedule is going to be thrown for a loop while I try to figure out how to work everything in. It’s high-performance computing work though, so there’s not much of a learning curve, and I can hit the ground running. But starting a new client is still pretty much like starting a new job, and I still have my current work to do as well.

For the past few years I’ve been working on special projects internally, trying to develop a product pipeline that can sustain the company more reliably than billable hours. But thanks to the awful winter we lost a boatload of money in the first quarter, so volunteered to go billable for a bit to help make it up. Everyone else on my projects has to juggle billable hours with internal project work, and I didn’t think I should be any different.

Unlike our opponents, who do this for a living, or who are stinking rich enough to not need employment, I have a mortgage to pay, and I like eating better than ramen. This first week might be a little rough blog wise, but I’m working with Bitter to help make up the short-fall. After that I should have a new schedule figured out and things will appear to return mostly to normal.

Everytown May Have Pushed Too Far

It’s not in doubt that our opponents lie in order to get ahead. To be fair to them, they kind of have to, because the actual truth is not on their side. But despite the media being generally compliant in helping them get their message out in a favorable light, there is such a thing as a lie too big even the media can’t ignore it. It appears that Everytown has crossed that line, forcing CNN to walk back earlier statements from the group.

What we have to hope is that this will make the media and hopefully the public a lot more careful about pronouncements from the group in the future. I don’t think this will be an earth shattering event, where Everytown suddenly gets called on every bit of spin or exaggeration from here on out, but at the very least they know they can’t just outright lie and expect the media to just go along.

There have been a number of outlets covering this. I’d at least say it qualifies as a little egg on their faces.

Missouri Town Bans Open Carry

More wages of Open Carry Texas. Missouri has pretty thorough preemption, but local communities are allowed to ban open carry of firearms:

A southwest Missouri community at the Lake of the Ozarks has banned the open carrying of firearms, even by people who have a conceal-and-carry permit, to avoid frightening off potential tourists.

I don’t know what’s been happening lately to give these folks the idea that people would be frightened off by the open carry if firearms. I doubt they get news from Texas all the way up there in Missouri.

There’s currently a bill sitting on Jay Nixon’s desk that would preempt all of this, but he’s not made it clear whether he’ll sign it. Think what’s going on in Texas is helping with that?

All Tools are Weapons

Just so you know where the end game is, this is a campaign in the United Kingdom. Yes, this seems to be serious, and not a parody. Look at the weapons! I see a hammer, a santoku kitchen knife, crossed with a fillet kitchen knife, and a screwdriver. There are not weapons to any normal person who is not half off their rocker. These are unambiguously tools. Are carpenters cowards? Are chefs cowards? Electricians? How does one determine whether someone is carrying a tool for a legitimate purpose or as a weapon? Why would any sane society want to put its people through something like this, having to justify why I might have a hammer, screwdriver, or knife in my car? Why I am carrying a Leatherman? Does anyone in Britain have the guts to tell these people they’ve lost their minds? It’s frankly hard to believe these are the same people who weathered The Blitz and stormed into France at Juneau and Sword.

More on the “Stroller Jam”

We were hearing some conflicting reports yesterday on the Stroller Jam that Mom’s Demand Action from Mayors in Everytown (a tip of the hat to Bearing Arms for coming up with that one) had put together, but it seems the truth is that there was one stroller. Â I’ve never really studied the physics of stroller traffic, but I’m pretty sure that it takes more than one stroller to cause a “jam.” Other than that, there were a dozen people.Â You can find their group portrait here.

At my club last night, made a special award presentation to one of our junior shooters, who earnedÂ NRA’s Junior Distinguished Expert Award, only the second shooter in our junior program to do so. A total of 35 people came to the meeting. That’s maybe 10 higher than what we run on a typical monthly members meeting, but the point is we’re turning out twice the number MDA is for what is normally the most mundane thing you can think of. We got ten extra people for doing something different this month! When CeaseFirePA organized a protest outside of a local lawmaker’s office, on just a few hours notice we were able to come up with twice the number of people they did.

When will it become apparent to corporations like Target that Shannon Watts is, as they would say in Texas, all hat and no cattle?

Legislators Not Optimistic about OC Bill in Texas

From the Texas State Rifle Association:

Last week, Mike Cox and I worked a TSRA booth at the Republican Convention in Fort Worth. During the first two days Republican House members and Senators dropped by to say hello.Â All commented that the gun-carrying demonstrations are doing more harm than good and not to expect much from the 2015 legislative session.

The complaints were fueled by a demonstration outside the Fort Worth Convention Center plus a handful of delegates who wore black powder handguns into the convention.

As TSRA’s lobbyist,Â I count votesÂ and I begin counting votes long before bills are even filed.Â Wouldn’t you?Â Â Every negative comment could be considered a “no vote” on any form of open carry.

There’s a rumor that Target is considering only banning open carry. That will include pistol OCers. Pistol OCers are going to be the biggest losers in all of this, because a concealed carrier’s gun is never going to be detected to prompt the request to leave the premises. And assuming that MDA has no luck getting corporations to post (which has force of law in a number of states), which I wouldn’t bet on if the dam starts breaking in a major way, which it appears it’s about to.