Sebastian – Page 883 – Shall Not Be Questioned

More on Carrying Pepper Spray

Brillianter has more, and I think he makes one very good point:

Ultimately I see a lot of people painting themselves into a corner where they are going to have to pull the trigger in order to have any self defense response. I hear a lot of talk in training circles about â€œlethal force options.â€ Lethal force is not optional, itâ€™s mandatory. If I had a choice to make I would choose something other than shooting. Lethal force is what happens when all those options are taken away. If I am not facing a deadly force threat then shooting isnâ€™t even an option.

Read the whole thing.Â When I carried pepper spray, back when I spent more time in Philadelphia, I always found the cylinders to be cumbersome.Â They are tough to grab out of a pocket and get into action, and they are rather obnoxiously conspicuous on a belt.Â You can only carry so much before you just look ridiculous.

But as much as I wish someone made a pepper spray in a package as compact and pocket friendly as, say, a Kel-Tec P3AT, they seem to make spray these days with clips on it just like they do with pocket knives.

They can have my 64 Comet …

… when they pry my cold dead 90 year old hands from it.Â I wish more people were like this.

How Far We Have Fallen from Duck Hunt

Chuck E. Cheese loses its gaming license in Amherst, New York, because town officials believe that the hunting and shooting related video games are bad for children.Â I still remember when Duck Hunt came out for Nintendo.Â Good thing the Amherst City Council wasn’t around then.

NRA Letter to Senate on Sotomayor

This letter NRA sent this morning to the Senate would appear to confirm that they are indeed grading the vote on Sotomayor, since I know some readers were skeptical.

Another Corrupt Mayor?

Bloomberg’s little Mayors against guns group has quite a track record.Â A big story hitting the local news is that the FBI have been busy beavers over in New Jersey, raiding the houses of New Jersey politicians.Â One of Bloomy’s mayors was among those who had a warrant served.

UPDATE: Thirdpower updates his list.

Right on Cue

Paul Helmke touts his impressive victory over the National Rifle Association, and display it as evidence that NRA is powerless:

What good did the NRA’s money and endorsements do for former Senator Norm Coleman, former Senator John Sununu and former Senator Gordon Smith? Not enough to return them to the Senate. Voters in those states rejected the gun lobby’s attacks last November and voted for their opponents.

Hey, nobody claimed NRA endorsements were a magic key to victory every time.Â There were a lot of broader political trends in 2008.Â Those still happen, you know. But either way, I have to admit, I’m kind of liking this Senate under Harry Reid.Â If we can just get Pelosi and Obama out of power, we might be able to run some serious bills.

Congressional Kabuke

Dave Hardy brings us an interesting link from the Washington Post:

Only two Republicans went against the gun lobby, but that was enough to leave supporters just short of the 60 votes they needed. The slim margin was no accident: Other Democrats, such as Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey and Colorado’s Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, were said to have been willing to vote “no” if necessary. Twenty minutes after the voting began, Bennet and Udall left the cloakroom together and walked into the chamber. Bennet went to the well to consult with Schumer, who indicated that it was safe for Bennet — a product of D.C.’s St. Albans School — to vote with the NRA. Bennet looked to Udall, who gave an approving nod, and cast his “aye” vote.

For better or worse, this is how politics works.Â What counts is the vote, and we still ought to appreciate that Casey was with us, and let him know as much.Â But we might want to add we do indeed expect that he vote with us in the future as well.Â Next time this comes up, if it has a chance, Casey might not want to be the Senator that lets this measure go down in flames.

All politicians are snakes, having some balance of all the worst traits of lawyers, used car salesmen, and power hungry narcissistic field marshals.Â Sure, there are a few politicians out there who believe in principles, but they typically end up very good at giving concession speeches.Â The nature of the this game practically guarantees you’ll have people who are with you one day, and against you the next.Â The great trick is convincing them it would be in their best interests, in terms of keeping their seat, to vote with you.

For once, the gun-control crowd won a shootout with the NRA. But nobody was talking about disarmament. “We know the gun lobby is strong,” Schumer said after the vote. “We know they will be back.”

You can count on it Chucky!

Want to Live Like John Moses Browning?

Well, you can buy his house.Â How awesome is that?

USA Today Fundamentally Misunderstands the Issue

Via Another Gun Blog, we have this interesting story from USA Today, where they seem to make the common mistake of thinking that guns are a rural vs. urban issue:

It makes no sense to make cities such as Los Angeles and Boston, which have significant urban crime, to conform to the politics of rural places. Nor is there much sense in forcing urban police officers to make instant decisions on the legitimacy of pieces of paper handed to them by menacing looking people packing heat.

USA Today overlook the fact that of our major cities, most of them are in states that allow law abiding citizens to obtain licenses to carry concealed firearms.Â Let’s take a look at our top 20 cities by population.Â Of the top 5 cities, two of them are in right-to-carry states.Â Of the top 10, a full half are in right-to-carry states.Â Of the top 20, 13 are in right-to-carry states.Â If you look at the safest large cities in America, six of the top ten are located in right-to-carry states, four of those being in gun loving Texas.

So, USA Today, the vast majority of urban areas are already under the circumstances you so lament, and many of them have remarkably low crime rates.Â This is not a rural vs. urban issue.Â It’s a freedom issue.Â And it’s been demonstrated time and again that people are responsible enough to use this freedom wisely.

Statements from Antis

Another Gun Guy has a statement fromt the VPC, and the Brady Campaign are already promoting this great victory on their front page, and in this press release here.Â It’s a strange, strange world where fifty-eight Senators voting for a stunningly pro-gun measure is touted as a great victory by anti-gun groups.Â The Bradys even state their hope that perhaps now the Senate will address banning private sales of firearms.

UPDATE: Bryan Miller now too: “Today’s narrow victory for public safety over the profits of the gun industry should be celebrated by all New Jerseyans with any desire to make our homes, schools and communities safer from the scourge of gun violence.”Â Yeah, go ask people in Camden or Trenton how safe they think New Jersey’s gun laws make them from the “scourge of gun violence.”