Sebastian – Page 567 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Willow Grove JSB (Formerly Naval Air Station) Closes

A local aviation related story is that one of our historic military landmarks for the area has closed:

Seven military aircraft powered up their engines and taxied slowly along the runway, as if hesitant to leave the ground.

Yet one by one, the hulking C-130 turboprop, the nimble A-10 Thunderbolt, and an assortment of other helicopters and jet fighters took off – hurtling down the 8,000-foot stretch of pavement for what would ultimately be a one-way trip.

“Willow Grove, thanks for the 68 years of dedicated service,” a radio trafficker’s voice squawked as the last plane disappeared into a gray afternoon sky.

Then, the runway lights went dark.

Given that the entire history of modern aviation is only about a century old, Willow Grove has been around for most of it. I went to air shows there as a kid, and more recently, back when they were doing that. The Pentagon has wanted to close it for a while, but local Congress Critters always lobbied to keep it open. What will happen to the base is uncertain, but there’s been talk of using it as an alternate airport to take pressure off of Philadelphia International Airport, which is the 11th busiest airport in the world.

On FAA Budgeting Matters

This is one of those times I’ll wander away from guns and into my sort of side-interest in aviation.Â Someone e-mails Instapundit in regards to an FAA bill:

There is also an automatic assumption that â€œprivatizingâ€ air traffic will somehow always be more cost effective than what we are already doing. Itâ€™s an article of faith, much like Socialists/Communists always seem to think that their system will work (despite a century of mass graves, economic failure, and oppression) if only the right people were running things. The world already has a wide variety of air traffic control systems in use. There are public, private, and public/private air traffic systems all around the world. The US system has the lowest cost per operation in the developed world. We also have the safest system, while running more traffic than the rest of the world combined. Rather than automatically demonizing people that are trying to improve what is already the safest, busiest, and most cost-effective air traffic system in the world, Iâ€™d ask your readers to find the working business model out there in the world that will out-perform what we are doing now. Not just an automatic assumption that a private enterprise just has to be more efficient, but a system in use somewhere else. Iâ€™m not saying it canâ€™t be done, but I am from Missouri on this. Show me. Or should we just assume that it will be more efficient if the right people are running it?

Glenn notes that Canada has a private ATC system, and I believe Eurocontrol is a private consortium as well. I’m not well familiar with how these systems operate, but I suspect there’s still a very high degree of public control.

One fear I would have of privatized air traffic control would be that the large scheduled carriers would dominate any consortium. Those large carriers would have no incentive to allow general aviation or even smaller scheduled or non-scheduled carriers to use their system at anything close to a reasonable price. A completely private system would essentially be handing a public resource, namely the skies, over to private interests who have bad incentives to monopolize the resource as much as possible.

Typically when we do things like this, such as for rights-of-ways for wires and pipes, we regulate them as public utilities. This kind of regulated market is not really a free market in any recognizable sense, and given that, it’s hard to see the case for privatization from a free market perspective.

More on Delaware Issues

Some follow up on the post yesterday about some gun related bills getting a hearing in Delaware comes to us from the President of the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, John J. Thompson:

As the president of the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association please let me assure you that [HB 46] is anythingÂ but harmless.Â TheÂ police have allowed the problem to occur.Â They make no effort whatsoever to notify the firearm owner that the firearm may be retrieved.Â When they have possession of otherÂ types of personal property the police contact the owner so as to return the items.Â Current law already provides a procedure for the disposition of abandoned property.Â The police refuse to use it.

Please do not be confused by the use of the term disposal.Â The Governor published a set of frequently asked questions and is his answer to one he made it clear that the sale of abandoned firearms was not an option because public safety forbids putting guns back on the street.Â At today’s hearing the Governor’s spokesperson, only after being cornered, admitted thatÂ all firearms would be destroyed.Â Â The sentiments expressed is his answer could easily be applied to all firearms because he made it clear thatÂ guns in the the hands of law abiding citizens present a threat to public safety.Â Remember this is the same Governor that believes that residents of public housing are second class citizens and are not capable of having firearms in their homes.

That changes my view on HB 46. I wasn’t very aware how authorities in Delaware were currently treating the issue, but needless to say a bill that forces police to destroy guns that could otherwise be sold to the law abiding is unacceptable. A bill that allows police to destroy the guns after failing to make a good faith effort to return them is unconscionable.

I recant my previous statement based on what this means in actual practice and suggest folks oppose HB 46.

Possible Problems in Attorney General Race

Several of the candidates mentioned in this article would be a disaster for us. Dan McCaffery has the backing of Bob Brady, meaning he’s cozy with the Philadelphia political machine who are no friends of ours. Lynne Abraham was not friendly to gun rights during her tenure as District Attorney for the City of Philadelphia, and Patrick Murphy’s gun control credentials have been well documented here.

The only unknown is Kathleen Granhan Kane, who was a prosecutor in Clarks Summit, near Scranton. I have no idea what her position is on Second Amendment issues. Considering how high profile the Attorney General is, and the amount of policy under that office’s control, it’s important that we keep that in pro-2A hands. So far the Democratic contenders do not impress me. We’re fortunate that since the Attorney General has been subject to popular election (by the Attorney General Act in 1980) that office has never been held by a Democrat. But we should not take anything for granted. The office is too important.

If World War II Were Fought Today

I’ve been a regular reader of Belmont Club since the early part of the last decade. I am amused by a comment of his, that I thought I’d share it here:

Itâ€™s a good thing weâ€™re smarter now than back in the old days. If World War 2 were being fought today, Iâ€™d fully expect to see the following headlines:

â€œObama plans surprise attack on Normandy Beach. Officials say deception plan will fool Nazis into defending Calaisâ€

â€œWhite House sources say the President has signed a secret finding declaring regime change in the Empire of Japan necessary to protect Malayan civilians.â€

â€œOSS agents discuss French cuisine, postwar cookbook authoring plans.â€

â€œPentagon officials refused to confirm or deny that the super-secret B-29 bomber is carrying an Atomic Bomb. They say that while it remains a national objective to defeat the Empire of Japan, their primary objective remains the protection of Malayan civilians.â€

â€œGood morning Mr. and Mrs. America and all the s**t at sea.â€

â€œCourrageâ€

In reference to the post here.

Good Rule for Gun Safety

Don’t try to catch a dropped gun.

Surprise

The most serious hardware in the cartel arsenals isn’t coming from the US.

Saying Thanks

Someone e-mailed me asking to pass this along to everyone. Dave Hardy has it here, so I’ll reprint his post:

Harold Volkmer, the very pro-gun former Missouri Congressman, played a key role in the evolution of the gun rights movement. His biggest feat came in pushing the Firearm Owners Protection Act thru the House, at time when the leadership (including Peter Rodino, chairman of House Judiciary Committee, who announced “the bill is dead on arrival in the House”) was in solid opposition. He won a discharge petition (almost impossible under the rules at the time), got it to the floor, led the fight that defeated a rival and much weaker bill and essentially led the revolt that beat his own party’s leadership.

The Congressman’s 80th birthday is April 4. He just survived a serious bout with pneumonia, weeks in the hospital, and will be returning to Missouri tomorrow to finish recuperation. His friends and family want to see that he gets a blizzard of birthday best wishes. His address will be:

Congressman Harold Volkmer
Beth-Haven Nursing Home
2500 Pleasant St.
Hannibal, Missouri 63401

Given what he’s done for us all, I think it’s the least we could do.

Delaware Gun Control Proceeding

Some of Markell’s bills are getting a hearing in the Delaware House Judiciary Committee today. HB 46 is one bill, which allows the state to dispose of firearms it’s accumulating from people who had restraining orders and have not claimed them after the order expired. It only allows disposal 60 days after the owner was notified he needed to claim them. I don’t see any reason the state should be forced to hold on to someone’s property indefinitely, so I don’t think this is unreasonable. The bill does not seem to call for destruction, so presumably the state could sell them. HB 48 merely implements the federal requirements for reporting mental health adjudications to NICS, including the relief from disabilities requirements for people that have undergone successful treatment post-adjudication.

Not all of Markell’s agenda is innocuous, so keep an close eye out if you live in Delaware.

Exactly What I Quietly Feared

Having checked the unrestrained passions, to put it mildly, of the left, the Tea Partiers head home to sleep it off.

Well, look. Victory in the midterms was bound to cool some peopleâ€™s ardor. Conservatives were irate over unchecked Democratic governance, and now thereâ€™s a check in the form of a Republican House, so the temperature had to come down. The difficulty here isnâ€™t convincing grassroots righties that they need to get their message out 24/7, itâ€™s figuring out how to raise that temperature again to the point where people are out in the streets, knocking on doors, volunteering, organizing, donating, and so forth. Candidly, I donâ€™t know how you do it; the best fuel is anger, but having just won a major legislative victory in Wisconsin â€” imperiled though it may be â€” some conservatives just may not be feeling the rage right now, no matter how vicious or intimidating the left tries to be.

Instapundit has more on the subject here. One has to have a grasp on exactly what politics is, and how you win elections. Only a small minority on either side of the political spectrum, however loosely we define it in this country, have put any serious thought into, or have bothered to educate themselves, on the issue of the day. They are motivated by far more superficial considerations than most people who follow what’s going on would be comfortable with. The process of winning elections involves bending these pliable voters over to your side. Neither side is capable of winning elections without bringing these voters along with them.

It’s an open question in my mind as to whether a republic can survive with universal suffrage. Limiting suffrage in this country, however, has been littered with racism and sexism. We’re not keen on the idea, and given the history understandably so. But we’ve developed a notion that voting is a civic duty, rather than something you should only do if you’ve bothered to learn something about the issues. I think being able to vote should be harder, to weed out those who are only casually interested. That could be as simple as requiring people to go to the county seat in order to register.

This obviously is not a workable idea, because we’ve all been raised to revere democratic governance. I’m just not convinced you can have lasting and stable republican government with a voting population that doesn’t want to pay taxes or cut spending. Something has to give.