Sebastian – Page 704 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Home Depot Supplying NYC Criminals With Illegal Weapons?

Now we discover Home Depot, Eastern Mountain Sports, and Paragon Sports, are illegal arms dealers to the underworld of New York City. Home Depot’s response:

The knives generally fall into one of two categories: switchblades and gravity knives. On a switchblade, the blade pops out at the simple flip of a switch; with gravity knives, the blades come out by a simple flick of the wrist. Carrying either of those kinds of knives is a crime under New York State law, prosecutors said. A spokesman for Home Depot, Stephen Holmes, said the company did not know that the knives were illegal in New York. As soon as prosecutors contacted the company, it immediately removed the knives from its two Manhattan stores and is removing them from all locations in the state, the spokesman said.

â€œThese are common knives,â€ Mr. Holmes said, adding that contractors and homeowners often used them â€œfor various home-improvement projects.â€

â€œWe simply didnâ€™t know that they were being used for any other purpose,â€ he said.

They weren’t being used for any other purpose, and Home Depot isn’t selling switchblades. This is a case of New York City’s District AttorneyÂ CyrusÂ Vance Jr. being a hysterical ninny.Â These people have completely lost their minds. You’re trying to regulate sharp pointy things! Think about it man!

UPDATE: Holy crap. Watch the video. To demonstrate the knives are dangerous, they show one salesman saying “I’ve almost taken my fingers off with those!” Knives can be dangerous. Who knew?!? I’d hate to think how a New York Times investigative reporter would deal with being sent to culinary school. Just think of how dangerous that must be?

Someone in the Media Gets It

The Washington Examiner at least knows who’s fault this is:

The NRA’s chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, on May 26 wrote every House member, attacking the DISCLOSE Act for creating “a series of Byzantine disclosure requirements that have the obvious effect of intimidating speech.”

Cox wrote, “there is no legitimate reason to include the NRA” in the bill’s reporting and disclosure rules. Democrats say the bill is about curbing the political influence of corporations, which sometimes form nonprofit front groups to run issue ads. This bill aims to expose the real money behind such ads. The NRA, however, doesn’t hide behind front groups.

The NRA’s objection derailed the bill just before it was expected to pass.

Rep. Heath Shuler, a pro-gun Democrat from a conservative North Carolina district, responded with a proposal to exempt membership-based nonprofits from the bill. This would protect the NRA, Human Rights Campaign, Americans for Tax Reform, and many other groups.

Apparently, for Democratic leadership, that defeated the purpose. Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote his own amendment, exempting only the largest membership groups. It was a carve-out for the NRA.

Health Schuler, who’s A-rated and endorsed by NRA, floated an amendment that would have pulled everyone’s ass from the fire. Chris Van Hollen, an F rated Democrat representing highly liberal Montgomery County, Maryland, counter proposed the infamous NRA carveout. Now, which one of these guys do you think was acting on NRA’s behalf?

DISCLOSE Vote Pulled

The bill is obviously not dead, but it’s in seriously jeopardy at this time:

Democratic leadership aides said the vote would be rescheduled until next week, but it is still unclear whether Pelosi and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the author of the bill, will have enough votes to move forward then.

I would say Countertop is now very close to being right. The Blue Dogs and Congressional Black Caucus were no votes, the Blue Dogs because of business interests lining up against DISCLOSE, and the CBC because of the NRA exemption.

I don’t think NRA’s plan was to derail this bill all along by seeking to be exempt. The reaction of other groups isn’t something they could have anticipated. But it’s worth noting that if NRA had sat idly by, this would have passed, because no one was paying attention to it, or understood how bad it was. It was NRA’s threatened opposition to the bill that made Pelosi carve out an exemption, so she could keep her Blue Dogs on board. It’s also worth noting if NRA had just opposed DISCLOSE, we also would have likely been saddled with it, because the CBC would have been on board. As Politico says, “Pelosi and Van Hollen could not afford to lose large numbers of votes from the Blue Dogs and the CBC.” She probably could have lost most of the Blue Dogs and still passed this. But not the Blue Dogs and CBC, with CBC representing 43 members.

Pelosi didn’t pull it out of the kindness of her heart. She pulled it because she does not have the votes to pass it. It’s hard to see how she’s going to get those votes without carving a wider exemption, which will cost her votes among those pushing Campaign Finance. It’s hard to see how Pelosi is going to put this one back together at this point, but I wouldn’t count her out. Health Care seemed dead more than a few times. The question will be will Pelosi want to spend the political capitol shoving this bill down our throats like she did with HCR? We’ll see.

Updated NRA Response to DISCLOSE

This would seem to be the letter they are sending to members:

We appreciate some NRA membersâ€™ concerns about our position on H.R. 5175, the â€œDISCLOSE Act.â€ Â Unfortunately, critics of our position have misstated or misunderstood the facts.

We have never said we would support any version of this bill. Â To the contrary, we clearly stated NRAâ€™s strong opposition to the DISCLOSE Act (as introduced) in a letter sent to Members of Congress on May 26 (click here to read the letter).

Through the courts and in Congress, the NRA has consistently and strongly opposed any effort to restrict the rights of our four million members to speak and have their voices heard on behalf of gun owners nationwide. Â The initial version of H.R. 5175 would effectively have put a gag order on the NRA during elections and threatened our membersâ€™ freedom of association, by forcing us to turn our donor lists over to the federal government. Â We would also have been forced to list our top donors on all election-related television, radio and Internet ads and mailingsâ€”even mailings to our own members. Â We refuse to let this Congress impose those unconstitutional restrictions on our Association.

The NRA provides critical firearms training for our Armed Forces and law enforcement throughout the country. Â This bill would force us to choose between training our men and women in uniform and exercising our right to free political speech. We refuse to let this Congress force us to make that choice.

We didnâ€™t â€œsell outâ€ to Nancy Pelosi or anyone else. Â We told Congress we opposed the bill. Â As a result, congressional leaders made a commitment to exempt us from its draconian restrictions on free speech. Â If that commitment is honored, we will not be involved in the final House debate. Â If that commitment is not fully honored, we will strongly oppose the bill.

Our position is based on principle and experience. Â During consideration of the previous campaign finance legislation passed in 2002, congressional leadership repeatedly refused to exempt the NRA from its provisions, promising that our concerns would be fixed somewhere down the line. Â That didn’t happen; instead, the NRA had to live under those restrictions for seven years and spend millions of dollars on compliance costs and on legal fees to challenge the law. Â We will not go down that road again when we have an opportunity to protect our ability to speak.

There are those who say the NRA has a greater duty to principle than to gun rights. Itâ€™s easy to say we should put the Second Amendment at risk over some so-called First Amendment principle â€“ unless you have a sworn duty to protect the Second Amendment above all else, as we do.

The NRA is a bipartisan, single-issue organization made up of millions of individual members dedicated to the protection of the Second Amendment. Â We do not represent the interests of other organizations. Â That’s their responsibility. Â Our responsibility is to protect and defend the interests of our members. Â And that we do without apology.

Certainly better, and more powerful than the last statement, and would refute the notion that they are going to reverse their position.

Gun Blogger Glossary

Thanks to SayUncle for pointing out this Gun Blogger Glossary. A handy guide for the gun blogger newbie.

Maybe We Need Counterstrike Gun Myths Articles

Tam extracts some hilarity from the comments over on cracked.com. Kids these days. They think because they play with guns in video games they are experts. If that’s the case, next time I’m flying I’m going to have to tell the pilot “Hey, you should let me land the plane. I’ve done it hundreds of times in the simulator. What could possibly go wrong?”

Maybe we need to start a program to take counterstrike kiddies out to play with real guns. I’ve only gotten to do that once.

Border Issues

Great Satan Inc is noting that the Bureau of Land Management is putting up warning signs about traveling, hiking, or camping in areas close to the border. This is scary:

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu recently stated thatÂ Mexican drug cartels now control parts of Arizona .Â It won’t be much longer until they control the Phoenix Metro area, unless our politicians get it in gear and start reclaiming the land that they have already surrendered to drug and human smugglers.

This is a foreign concept for this Pennsylvanian, since the only international border we have in our state is a smallÂ maritimeÂ border with Canada. This problem isn’t new in our country’s history. Dave Hardy a few weeks ago noted some of Auto Ordinances early marketing touting the Thompson submachine gun as great for defending against border raiders. But we have to face these problems with the same resolve now as we did back then. It’s a shame we can’t reanimate John J. Pershing. We’d get this mess cleared up in no time.

I would say if the Mexican Cartels are seriously controlling parts of Arizona, it’s time for Brewer to mobilize the National Guard and take them back. That’s a situation that can’t be allowed to stand.

What’s In Your Pocket?

I mentioned yesterday Uncle’s review of an interesting holster. There are a number of problems I have with pocket carry, based on all the equipment I prefer to carry. First, here’s some of the gear I’m carrying:

The Apple chicklet keyboard is for scale. I’m not carrying that with me. But starring from left to right is a Kimber Pepper Blaster II, a Kel-Tec P3-AT, Fenix LD10 Flashlight, Sabre Red OC, and a spare loaded mag for the Kel-Tec.Â Not featured is the SOG Aegis, car keys, wallet, nor the iPhone and MultiTool I carry everywhere.

I’m not carrying all these things all the time. I either carry the OC canister, or the Pepper Blaster. Not both. If you look at the pocket holster I carry the Kel-Tec in, I have the flashlight laid out exactly how I prefer to carry it in pocket. Why? Because it breaks up the outline. You’ll see what I mean:

The camera didn’t do it justice, but these are an older pair of jeans that have a gun shape worn in them. Those got worn before I figured out I needed something to break up the outline. Even if I carry a wallet in my front pocket, at least I feel the wear pattern looks kind of obvious. In this picture, the Kel-Tec and holster are in the pocket, so you can see it’s obvious to someone observant that I’m carrying.

The purpose of a pocket holster is to protect the trigger, and to keep the gun upright in the pocket. It does an excellent job of that. But after a while, it doesn’t break up the outline effectively, and needs help. I’m not sure a holster that helps something else ride there is the answer, even thought I said yesterday it might be cool.

First, if I’m carrying a flashlight in that pocket, I go fetch that several times a day. There can’t be a holster getting in the way of that. Secondly, I need to be able to place it back in a pocket, and secure it in place without man handling anything, and definitely without having to remove the holster from the pocket to redo straps or get things in the right position.

Everything’s really a trade off. If we were all cops we could just keep everything on a duty belt, but we’re not. We have to make choices. In summer time, for me that means a pocket rocket instead of a Glock 19. That means a smaller OC canister. After more thought, I think the main piece of gear that would be helpful in this setup is a pocket holster for the Pepper Blaster II, for when I opt to carry that in circumstances I can’t carry a pistol. The original Pepper Blaster had a clip, but for some reason Kimber didn’t do that with the second version. I feel uncomfortable carrying the PB II in a pocket without the trigger guarded. The safety that comes with it is feeble.

If anyone has any suggestions or good stories from their own experience, feel free to chime in.

Quote of the Day

Dennis Henigan is predictably upset:

Itâ€™s now clear that the Democratic leadership in Congress has turned the reins of power over to the National Rifle Association. Is it time to make it official and elect the NRAâ€™s Wayne LaPierre Speaker of the House?

The reality is this is the most Democratic Congress in many years. It’s also the most left-wing Congress we’ve had at least in my lifetime. Yet this Congress has bent over backwards to avoid picking a fight with NRA, and have honestly been willing to do more for us in two years than the Republican Congress did in 14 years. Reid’s been very good about attaching pro-gun amendments to bills that give the White House cover to sign, and sign they have.

The shame of it is I’m angry about nearly everything else this Congress has done. The even bigger shame of it is that after NRA fails to protect many of the incumbents, they could see a lot of political capital disappear overnight. The good thing is the house will probably flip back to GOP. But that might not be the best thing for our gun rights.

One reason I’m not all that sympathetic to conservative groups and Republican hacks complaining that NRA won’t do their fighting for them is that they’ve never really lifted a finger for us when we needed them. Guns have always been a barely welcome part of the Republican coalition. It’s worth noting it was a Republican Congress in 1996 that failed to undo the wrong of the Clinton gun ban. After November, it’ll be time for the GOP to show us things have changed, lest we too soon begin to consider that perhaps the Democrats learned something on other fronts from their 2010 beating.

There’s a new Sheriff in town boys. Best get used to it.

Delco Times Refighting Heller

They aren’t happy Lentz’s reciprocityÂ weakeningÂ bill is being held up:

When it comes to firearms, some people refuse to face facts.

Blindly invoking the Second Amendment, written almost 235 years ago when militias were needed to defend a fledgling nation, they decry any effort to stem the flow of guns to the general public.

Even spurning attempts at compromise, they grouse at any hint of gun control.

How would the Delco Times feel if we said the First Amendment’s right to freedom of the press was antiquated, written almost 235 years ago when we needed a formal press establishment? It seems if it’s there, we ought toÂ respectÂ it, and last I checked the Times didn’t need a license from the state before it had permission to exercise its right. The editorial that follows is completely one sided. I know it’s an editorial, but they sought out quotes from proponents,and their quote from someone on our side was a throw away, meaningless one liner. There was no attempt to convey our concerns about the abuses of Philadelphia’s discretion in issuing and revoking Licenses to Carry. You want to agree that it’s still a smart measure, fine, but don’t give our opponents views credence without listening to us. This is why the dead tree media is going down the toilet.