The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Being debated in the House right now. It would appear there will be a vote on it, which I believe will end up going in our favor. For live coverage of the debate, you can follow @PAGunRights on Twitter. Â Bitter will be covering the debate, which she is watching live. Here’s hoping we’ll get to see some cane waving legislators on the floor like we did last time.
UPDATE: It has PASSED! 161-35, and is headed to Governor Rendell.
Todd Zywicki argues against an article by David Gans who points out the problems that were meant to be solved by the 17th Amendment:
[T]he system led to rampant and blatant corruption, letting corporations and other moneyed interests effectively buy U.S. Senators, and tied state legislatures up in numerous, lengthy deadlocks over whom to send to Washington, leaving those bodies with far less time to devote to the job of enacting the laws their states needed for the welfare of the people. These ills made the case for bringing the election of Senators in line with the Constitution’s fundamental values of protecting democracy and securing the right to vote to all Americans a very strong one.
Deadlocked state legislatures? You say that like it’s a bad thing. And I’d suggest we could use a more business friendly Senate these days anyway. And what’s this about the Constitution protecting democracy? I want the Constitution to protect rights. I could give a rat’s behind about democracy. Democracy hasn’t done so wonderfully for getting politicians to but their noises out of where it doesn’t belong. Truth is, I’m skeptical of the claim that repealing the 17th Amendment is going to make things any better, but if deadlocked state legislatures, fighting over who to send to Washington is a possible result, maybe I ought to get on board the repeal train.
This is an interesting article on the top business that have been destroyed by the emergence of the smart phone. I have my doubts that PDAs were killed by Smart Phones so much as PDA’s became Smart Phones. Palm was destroyed because they failed to keep up. I think Research in Motion, who pioneered the Smart Phone with a truly awful product may not be far behind. Smart Phones probably will largely eat the MP3 player market, and the low end point and shoot market. That much makes sense.
But the GPS market? The PC market? Watches? Having once upon a time been a fairly serious hiker, my iPhone presents a serious impediment to being used as a GPS, namely that it won’t tolerate being dunked in water, rained on, smashed against a rock, or dropped. Those are important features for something going with you outdoors, and I’ve never seen a PDA that had a speaker loud enough, and mounting hardware good enough to do auto navigation effectively. That’s one function I’m looking for application specificity. What if I get a call while I’m navigating somewhere? As for watches, who wants to have to dig a Smart Phone out from under 10 layers of clothes during the winter just to see what you could easily see by turning your wrist? And the idea that Smart Phones having displaced PC is laughable. Until a smart phone can project two 1080p monitors side by side directly onto my retina, I’m pretty sure the PC has a future.
The fact that Gartner is quoted in this is really all you need to know. I don’t think Gartner has been right about any major computing trend, and I can’t believe people still pay them money to keep producing that drivel.
This is pretty standard for how the State of New Jersey treats gun owners. There’s clubs over in New Jersey that run a lot of good matches, but I won’t go to any of them because of this. I’ve asked people who are lawyers what they thought of a PA resident attending matches in New Jersey and I was basically told it’s a serious risk, and I’d have to decide for myself whether it’s worth it.
I do hope Chris Christie gives this guy a pardon. He deserves it. I’m happy to see Christie already ousted the judge responsible for this case.
By attempting to riddle a van with bullets. I say attempting, because they weren’t very good shots.
Glad to see this idea getting traction from a mainstream publication.
Hat Tip to SayUncle
I promise this won’t turn into an anti-TSA blog, but we had some issue with Bitter coming back from visiting family in Nashville, which I’m hoping she’ll write about, that has me on the warpath against the agency that never should have been created.
Miguel notices that there’s a program in Mexico to melt down firearms and turn them into shovels:
This shovels will more likely be used to continuing piling the bullshit regarding US guns into Mexico and digging graves for those who are dying in the local Drug Wars.
They are going to need a lot more shovels to continue piling that much BS. Does anyone think the cartels are going to turn in their guns?
I would think the Brady Campaign would be all over this guy. He’s a poster child for both their “Terror Loophole” legislation and their “Gun Show Loophole” legislation, even though he doesn’t seem to be on the watch list, could legally purchase firearms anyway, and didn’t seem to buy guns at gun shows. You know, just like Virginia Tech, which also had nothing to do with gun shows, became a rallying cry for closing the so-called “loophole.” That seems to fit the formula, find someone sufficiently scary, who your pet legislation would have done nothing to stop, then say it’s an example of why we need said pet legislation.
An account here. I’m through with flying until this crap stops.
Looks like there will be another effort to push campus carry again in Texas:
Simpson said he wants to file a substitute to his bill to allow private universities and colleges to opt out of the campus-carry law. Otherwise, any university or college in Texas could not stop “license holders from carrying handguns on the campus.â€
However, students would not be able to store handguns in their dorm rooms. Schools would not be held liable for any damages caused by the guns. If it passes, the law would go into effect Sept. 1, 2011.
This would be welcome, though, I’d want to know how they implement the opt-out practice. Will we need to carry a list of colleges and universities that opt out? It would seem to be that it’s perfectly within a private school’s right to expel someone for violating their rules, or to ask a person to leave their property. I’m not sure why the law needs to be involved.