Sebastian – Page 346 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Sign Wars

With Silly Season now in full swing, it is once again time for “Sign Wars.” This is one of those thing in politics that seems silly, because who ever has been convinced by a sign? As hard as it is for people who are even slightly civilly engaged to understand, it offers a lot of credit to the kinds of voters who will be deciding a close election such as this one. It is a soft form of psychological warfare, “All of my neighbors like this Romney guy, but I think Obama is a good husband, and a good man. I mean sure, he’s not been the best President, but maybe if my neighbors all like Romney then I should take another look at Romney.” If you can accomplish it, greatly outnumbering the opposition in the sign wars can demoralize partisans and suppress turnout. At least that’s the idea.

So now that October is upon us, the sign wars are starting. Bucks County seems to be blooming in yard signs much later this year than previous years. I’ve seen precious little. Chester County is starting to bloom. A brief drive through neighborhoods on the way to work, so far Romney-Ryan is outnumbering Obama by 10-to-1. These are comfortably wealthy to upper-middle-class neighborhoods in a county that is traditionally Republican, and went red in 2000 and 2004, but went blue in 2008 for Obama. I’d be curious to drive through the super wealthy parts of the ring counties and see how the sign wars are going there.

I tend to believe most people who are comfortably well off will still lean pretty heavily Republican. It’s not until you get into the super wealthy, where they feel the need to assuage their guilt by supporting socialism for the little people, do you get things trending more Democrat.

Firing a Glock Underwater

Pretty cool video. From the looks of it, even though the bullet didn’t go very far, the case ejected and action cycled just fine.

Hey, We Know That Guy

Going through my Google Alerts, I notice Miguel’s face staring back at me, urging folks to “Keep Calm and Carry.”

Greetings to all the GPRCers

Gun Rights Policy Conference, put on by the Second Amendment Foundation, is in Florida this year, in the Orlando Airport Hyatt. One of these days I’ll make a GRPC, but these days I don’t have as much spare money to fly all over the place for the gun issue. One day I will go.

Miguel is there, andÂ has an excellent illustration to show just how ridiculous Florida’s application of the law in this instance can be. Also at GRPC this year? Sounds like Robb, Joe Huffman, Dave Hardy, and John RichardsonÂ are also attending. I offer my regrets, but perhaps next year (which I say every year).

Otis McDonald Sick in Hospital

John Richardson notes, and asks for thoughts and prayers.

UPDATE: John has an update. Looks like he’s out of the ICU and doing much better.

Alaska …

… now 100% MAIG free. I wish we could say that about Pennsylvania, but at the current arrest rate for the mayors, at least the numbers are moving in a positive direction.

Phony Baloney Fact Checkers

I’m not sure how you can maintain credibility, when you investigate a claim like “NRA attacks Bill Nelson for voting to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to Supreme Court,” which is pretty much a yes or no proposition, and a matter of public record, and then rate it as “Mostly True” instead of absolutely and irrefutably true. So why the “Mostly?”

What’s missing from this attack is the context that Nelson voted to confirm Sotomayor before she signed the opinion inÂ McDonald.Â That context slightly dulls the connection between Nelson and Sotomayor’s position.

Um, no it doesn’t. Sotomayor had already ruled on a Second Amendment case in her capacity as a Judge sitting on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. That case was Maloney v. Rice, the well-known Ninchaku case. In the opinion she joined, the 2nd Circuit refused to recognize the Second Amendment as applying to the states:

The Fourteenth Amendment similarly provides no relief for Appellant. “Legislative acts that do not interfere with fundamental rights or single out suspect classifications carry with them a strong presumption of constitutionality and must be upheld if `rationally related to a legitimate state interest.'”

So she ruled the Second Amendment was not protecting any fundamental right, essentially. This is what NRA’s opposition to her confirmation was based on. This is not a mostly true proposition, it is completely true, and there was ample basis for belief that Sotomayor was not friendly to the Second Amendment. This is just a hatchet job on the part of the media, and it’s not surprising.

Some Election Season Humor

Via Kevin:

Don’t Be Offended if I Don’t “Friend” You

I sometimes get friend requests from people I don’t know, but who have mutual friends that indicate they may be readers. Back when I started that Facebook thing, I pretty much friended anyone who friended me, but now I have a pretty strict policy of not friending anyone I don’t know from Adam. I don’t do politics or guns on Facebook (except for, you know, when I actually go shoot). It’s strictly boring personal stuff.

So it’s nothing personal if I don’t friend you. Most of the gunny and bloggy people I’ve friended I’ve met in person, and those that I haven’t I added back before I thought very much about this Facebook thing. I’m very careful now with Facebook, lest our opponents find out where I work, who my coworkers and family are, or discover details of my remodeling plans, and start up whole new themed blogs called “Colors Gun Nuts Can’t Coordinate” and “Landscaping Disasters of Insurrectionists.”

It’s Time to Play, “Look at the Crazy Americans”

The foreign press often has a field day with our culture, and the Daily Mail in the UK is no different. But they are worse than our media about getting things right:

That looks like a .22 AR to me, rather than being an M16A2. The real irony is if the authors are thinking Americans are crazy for allowing ownership of guns like this, provided one obtains a Firearms Certificate, that firearm is perfectly legal to own in the UK. The UK did not ban semi-automatic firearms chambered in .22LR, and they have no “Assault Weapons” nonsense in their gun laws.

I won’t even get into the fact that even if that was an M16, it couldn’t have been an A2, since the A2 did not have a removable carry handle, and that the US Army has largely abandoned the M16 in favor of the M4 carbine. If they had said US Marines, that would have been correct, but they use the M16A4, largely.