The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
The Democrats new choice to take the Pennsylvania chair has an interesting name, that is hopefully prognostic, given the openly gun control supporting folks running on the Dem ticket in the state wide races this year. But we’re happy the MAIG mayor lost her bid for the position.
We have no idea where Jim Burn stands on the Second Amendment, but we’re hopeful being from Allegheny County, he does not follow the current trend of going against us.
I think Les Jones and I are pretty much of the same mind on this episode. Next week is shoot, no shoot scenarios, a topic I sincerely hope Caleb has improved on since I last shot with him. My dad, who is also not a shooter and never owned a gun (I do not come from a gun owning household) is watching the show as well. I continue to agree this show is great PR for the shooting sports.
Fun video from Brownells about their magazine testing. The closed captioning is funny. But I have to wonder how many M16/M4 barrels and gas tubes they end up melting:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15N-YQxfLNg[/youtube]
These are the civilians magazines they sell being tested. I’m told the actual military magazines are very tightly controlled from factory through deployment. But rumor has it a few of the tan follower military mags have appeared in the wild, which were absconded from military bases. I wouldn’t suggest buying one, because I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of felony or another to buy stolen federal property.
Bitter and I made a last minute trip down to DC this weekend to see two of her friends from college. One is a lobbyist on the hill who we always see when we’re down in DC. The other was in from Minnesota, who Bitter hasn’t seen in a number of years. But as long as we were down there, I decided to do some sightseeing. I’ve always wanted to visit Fort Washington, which was one of the main fortifications that protected the U.S. Capital from attack by water for most of this nation’s history. Built first in 1809, it was in use as a fort to protect the Capital well into the 20th century. I decided to do a photoblog on it. I used to do these somewhat often, but they take a lot of time to put together, so I kind of stopped. But I figured since I got a lot of good gun pics, folks wouldn’t mind too much. I like old artillery pieces, and they keep the ones at Fort Washington in good shape. Click on the pictures for more information.
Dave Hardy notes that after today’s opinion release that Alito and Ginsburg are the only two remaining justices that have not issued an opinion from this sitting. This worries me because while many have always felt that Kennedy was the weakest link in the Heller Five, I’ve speculated that it’s actually Sam Alito. Let us hope this doesn’t say anything about the outcome of the case.
Onorato is blaming Tom Corbett for the so-called “Florida Loophole,” showing that the candidate for Governor in 2010 is not shy about sending his gun control views up the flag pole. This is in contrast to Governor Ed, who conveniently dropped the issue like a hot potato during his 2002 and 2006 runs.
I’m convinced that Governor Ed has convinced fellow Dems that the NRA can’t touch them. His evidence? His two terms, and Barack Obama’s ten point win in this state. Except Ed ran against two lackluster candidates, and so did Barry. Corbett isn’t a weak candidate. He’s a hard campaigner and a good fundraiser.
It’s absolutely important we send Dan Onorato packing this fall, or it’s going to be over for us in Pennsylvania. Democrats will say the NRA can’t hurt them, only then they will be right.
Cam Edwards on his show tonight reads a response from Brad Smith from the Center for Competitive Politics, the group Cam mentioned on Tuesday as being the premier group for fighting this kind of campaign finance nonsense. They are the one that coined the term “Shotgun Sellout.” Well, Jim Geraghty of National Review picked up on this story too, which got Brad’s attention, so Cam reads his response here, which is considerably more conciliatory:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmc1kY9dcHo[/youtube]
I have also lent some monetary support to the Center for Competitive Politics, because I really appreciate Brad’s response and honesty here. My comment to them?
I am disgusted by DISCLOSE. I do support NRA’s position on this bill as an NRA member, concerned about the Second Amendment, but I am hoping you folks will do some good work bringing in the First Amendment support. Campaign Finance reform is an abomination for First Amendment rights. I look to the NRA to defend the Second. I will look toward you to defend the First. Thank You.
I will be honest. I did not know about CCP except through Cam’s show. Now that I know about them, I will support them. Fighting Campaign Finance laws is difficult work. The people pushing incumbent protectionism in the name of clean politics have the rhetoric on their side. It is an uphill battle. I wish CCP all the luck in the world in this fight. It’s a difficult one, but it is of supreme importance.
Under Pennsylvania law, if these “stun gun bandits” robbed a Starbucks with a gun, you’d be legally justified in shooting them. But they are robbing with a stun gun, which is not deadly force. In many states, you can use deadly force to stop a forcible felony, and robbery counts. Pennsylvania is not one of those states, however.
Could you claim self-defense for the use of deadly force if you had a pacemaker or bad heart, and were threatened with a taser? More importantly, if you’re carrying a firearm, and are threatened with a taser, can you claim self-defense because they could use the taser to disarm you?
If it were me, I’d probably spray them. But I’m not sure that’s the smart move. I tend to think the use of deadly force to stop a forcible felony is the correct standard. That standard does have its roots in common law. If you’re committing a robbery, you’re taking your life into your hands. No matter what the instrument. That seems, to me, to be the right balance.
Joe Huffman, in the context of this whole DISCLOSE fiasco, an interesting philosophical question:
This may end up being a Philosophy 101 question. Should someone (or an organization) be criticized for their intentions or on the results of their actions? If they were being very clever and defeated the bill we should praise them. If they were just looking out for the short term and got lucky with the same result should we be critical of them?
Let me start off by saying I don’t think any of this was some devious plot by NRA. There’s too many unknowns at work they couldn’t have predicted ahead of time. But in conflict, any kind of conflict, engaging with your opponent yields important information. It forces him to react. In most conflict, the victor is often not the smartest player in the game, but the player who makes the fewest mistakes. Philosophically, I think you have to look at intent. But what was NRA’s intent?
Boiled down to one sentence it was “If we’re subject to this bill, we’re going to oppose it.” That forced the enemy, in this case, Pelosi and Van Hollen, to react. They reacted poorly, first by rejecting Shuler’s proposal to exempt all 501(c)(4) advocacy groups, which would include NRA and nearly everyone else. Second in floating a blatantly transparent deal that exempted pretty much only NRA, that had the effect of pissing everyone else off enough to actually do something in opposition to the bill. NRA engaged the enemy, and they made mistakes. The entire chain of events was set in motion by NRA’s initial opposition to DISCLOSE. If the bill goes down to defeat, which is looking increasingly likely, I think it would be unfair not to give NRA credit for its defeat. It was the NRA’s opposition to the bill that forced the Democrats to make mistakes.
Perhaps it could be argued that NRA making public pronouncements about not opposing DISCLOSE with Van Hollen’s amendment was a mistake. There’s an argument to be made. I don’t think many historians would argue that our carrier tactics in the Battle of the Coral Sea were all that up to stuff, but it’s still widely considered an American win because we were the side that made fewer mistakes. Strategically, the implications of that conflict played out in our favor. So I don’t think it’s any less correct to credit NRA with defeating DISCLOSE than it would be to say the U.S. Navy won the Battle of the Coral Sea.
The Knoxville Gun Rights Examiner takes notice of a product being sold by NRA which is an extraordinarily bad idea. I hope NRA will reconsider this. I don’t think they really want to sell anything that puts their members in danger.