Sebastian – Page 396 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Canadian Gun Owners Used by the Tories

Well, it was either going to go one of two ways for Canadian gun owners once they succeeded in getting rid of the long gun registry: either the Tories were going to discover a new constituency to whose votes they were eager to keep, or they’d figure gun owners had helped them achieve power, were justly rewarded, and now it’s pretty much “Thanks for last night. Feel free to let yourself out.”

Well, it seems the latter is going to be the course. This is the real problem of trying to build a movement only through a single party. It allows that party to get away with being not as bad as the other guy, and not much more. That’s one thing that ought to awfully concern us about the extinction of the blue dog Democrats. There are times when voting the lesser of two evils can be the smart move, and there are other times when withdrawing support is the better option. If I were a Canadian gun owner, I wouldn’t feel like I really needed to get to the polls to help keep the Conservative Party in power next election. If it’s true that that registry was “unpopular with many Canadians, not just gun owners, largely due to its wastefulness,” then there’s not much risk a Labor government is going to want to re-instate it. Plus, you just might find an out-of-power Conservative Party willing to ride back into power on another issue that is upsetting to Canadian gun owners.

But first Canadians gun owners have to start becoming single issue, or damned near single issue voters on the gun issue. That’s the only way toward success, and is a big part of why the movement here has been successful.

The Problems of the Internet

Jim Geraghty links to a pretty good bit on how the Internet is making it a lot easier for crazies to find each other, and how it’s probably responsible for the emergence of the new crazy in our political discourse:

Enter the Internet. The good news is, if you really want to talk about obscure bits of history, or political issues, or sports, or pop culture, chances are, thereâ€™s some online community for you. Of course, this applies to every interest, including the bad ones â€” hate groups, child pornographers, extremists of every stripe.

I don’t think there’s a good way to deal with this. Public social pressure doesn’t seem to work effectively on Internet communities, because enough of them find each other they feel comfortable in lashing back at the people criticizing them. In fact, there’s probably a great deal of feeling like persecuted outsiders that probably strengthens resolve among the adherents to whatever weirdness you want to speak of.

Humans are tribal my nature, and if your a member of the crazy tribe, the Internet has allowed you to find the rest of your tribesmen.

What Memorial Day Means to Our Opponents

An opportunity to bash the National Rifle Association and those of us who defend the rights and liberties they died for. And how are these people good Americans again, exactly?

The Inevitable Result of Shooting a Face Eating Zombie

From Miguel (graphic link, just to warn), you’re always going to have the bleeding hearts:

The same somebody at work who passed the drug info on Rudy Eugene, complained loudly that the first officer on the scene â€œdid not have to shoot him four times.â€ When I asked what would have been the right amount of shots required to stop a drug-crazed individual who was ripping off the flesh of a fellow human being (according to what I just heard on the news, a 60 year old homeless guy) he refused to answer.

When it comes to using deadly force against people who are unarmed, if being naked and eating someone’s face off doesn’t quality as justification, I don’t think the world can help you. Four shots is what it took to stop to the threat. End of story. It makes me think if there was ever an outbreak of face eating zombies, you’re going to have people like this running around trying to stick up for the rights of the zombies. Well, at least until it’s their face getting eaten off.

Double Standard of the Left

I recently came across this cartoonÂ by Khalil Bendib:

Replace GOP with Dems, replace Voter ID laws with gun control laws, and tell me why it no longer works. Both voting and buying firearms are a fundamental right, according to the Supreme Court. It’s apparently horrible to require ID for one, but perfectly fine for the other. Perhaps the left would like to agree that neither is fine?

More on Cities Funding MAIG Employees

All Nine Yards takes a look at a recent round of belt tightening by the City of Orlando, which apparently Â included laying off 400 city employees. This did not include the MAIG coordinator.

Zimmerman Update from TalkLeft

Jeralyn at TalkLeft has a very detailed and interesting assessment of what happened in the George Zimmerman case. It’s well worth a read. I had not found anyone speaking of this issue, as to whether Zimmerman’s attorney would even want to try for an immunity hearing under the SYG law:

If Zimmerman Attorney Mark O’Mara believes the Judge will find some way to wriggle out of ruling in Zimmerman’s favor at a Stand your Ground hearing, the question becomes, should he even try for it? It would give the state a free preview of his defense case at trial, giving the state additional time to find specific arguments and witnesses to refute it. On the other hand, it gives the defense a free test-drive on cross-examination of the state’s witnesses.

The idea that a judge is going to want to toss this hot potato as soon as it lands in his lap seems pretty reasonable to me. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens from here.

The Narrative Slips Out of Control for Josh Horwitz

Josh Horwitz, the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, throws in a pinch of worry in the debate over Marissa Alexander in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, with a dash of outrage:

Third, and most disturbing, the current debate over Marissa Alexander serves only to further the interests of the National Rifle Association. They must be sitting in their high-rise offices in Fairfax, Va., marveling at how they created a country where even political moderates are now arguing for a wider application of their “Kill at Will” philosophy.

I can’t speak for the folks in Fairfax, but I’m certainly marveling over how thoroughly organizations like CSGV and Brady have lost this debate. Even Bloomberg is afraid to drag MAIG directly into it, and is instead attacking Stand Your Ground under his own auspices.

I ultimately agree with Horwitz’s conclusion that Alexander’s motion for immunity was properly denied, and will even go so far as to join them on the ridiculousness of the mandatory minimum. But it still bowls me over that, in the wake of failure after failure, guys like Horwitz just keep wanting to recycle the same tired arguments, and the same, overheated, over-the-top rhetoric. This was a tragedy practically custom made for them, and they still got no traction on it. Public support for Stand Your Ground is still pretty high.

Our opponents were used to a media environment where they could grab hold of the narrative and drive it as far as they like, but that does not work in the world we live in now. The funny thing is, no one can control it for long, not even us. But for some reason that’s strengthened our hand, and severely weakened theirs.

Memorial Day in New Jersey

From Ian:

“The Memorial Day Parade was led off by a drill team firing blanks, and the empty brass was in demand by the children watching, and I saw the team handing them out.”

This is one particular instance where New Jersey is still a bastion of freedom. When this same thing happened a few years ago in Massachusetts, a school bought the hammer down, and fortunately, law enforcement did not, though they could have, since it’s a felony to do what was done here in New Jersey in Massachusetts.

There are plenty of people still out there who have no respect of concern for the freedom they died protecting.

Why They Serve

The Wall Street Journal is running an article by Tom Manion, who lost his son in Iraq. It’s well worth a read this Memorial Day. Tom Manion was the GOP candidate who went up against Patrick Murphy in 2008, and unfortunately lost. I think the idea was that he was able to neutralize Murphy’s anti-war position, due to the fact that he had lost his son in Iraq, but in 2008, the was fighting the last election.