Bitter – Page 50 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Binders Full of Women vs. Underage Prostitutes

I’m a woman, and I’m having some trouble following the media narrative on women’s issues in politics. If I’m following it correctly, I believe these are the highlights:

1) I am under attack in a war that has been declared on my gender.

2) Those attacks are only from men who may want to tell me about how to use my reproductive organs to make babies, but not by the men who want to restrict my right to defend myself from a rapist who may want to make use of said reproductive organs without my consent.

3) I attended an all-woman college that was founded on the principles that women, even those of very modest means, could contribute more to society than just pleasing men and required high academic standards for women of the day. Yet, in the last election, the message to women on campus was that the only way to define a woman’s role in elections is through the interest of her reproductive organs (that she should not be able to protect from assault using a personal firearm).

4) The candidate for president who made a remark about seeking out qualified women for administration jobs was the leader of the opposition in this war on women, but the President who appointed an ambassador who may have been screwing underage girls is absolutely on the side of women. Oh, and since the Department of State was under the leadership of a woman (who also attended a single sex institution), it’s okay that investigators looking into these allegations were ordered to stop their work.

I’m just making sure that I’m able to keep up. Maybe it’s because I’m in a relationship with a neanderthal gun owner that I’m a little slow to keep up on these complex matters. According to the media, this should all be clear to me (and my reproductive organs that define who I am). Regardless of what they tell me, I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around this so-called war.

The New Realities

Jim Geraghty made this remark in light of the NSA spying leaks: “Of course, you can do the right thing and still break the law.”

Meanwhile, Sesame Street debuts an education kit for helping kids deal with an incarcerated parent.

Clearly, there’s not such an epidemic of questionable spying document dumping in this country that these two things are directly related, but I don’t think they are completely unrelated, either. It’s a sad day when we pretty much joke about how practically everyone is a criminal these days because they’ve probably cross some regulation they never even knew existed.

It reminds me of a Kindle book my mom bought me that I really need to read soon: Trapped: When Acting Ethically is Against the Law

Unfortunately, since the answers to these issues don’t fit into a soundbite, don’t expect any serious discussions about the topic from our political leaders.

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Host Concealed Carry Course

Two Pennsylvania state lawmakers are hosting a concealed carry-related course later this month. Reps. Seth Grove and Mike Regan are hosting the non-live fire course that will focus on the legal elements of carrying concealed in the Commonwealth.

Attorney Matt Menges will discuss concealed carry laws and will touch on the Castle Doctrine. An officer from the Northern York County Regional Police will discuss how to safely interact with the police while exercising the legal right to carry a firearm.

This sounds like a great opportunity for folks around Wellsville, PA in York County. You certainly don’t hear about lawmakers doing events like this very often, and I think they deserve credit for providing such a class that helps people understand how to carry lawfully.

What Was the Real Motivation Behind the Bloomberg Ricin Letters?

I found it interesting that the couple at the center of investigation into the ricin letters were blaming each other. The wife called authorities and reported it was her husband, but the husband told authorities who showed up that she set him up to take the fall.

Interestingly, it appears as though investigators believe him since they just arrested his wife.

I’m curious if she’s off her rocker and then figured she’d try to blame her husband for the letters once she realized they would really investigate or if the entire plot was designed to set her husband up for massive legal troubles. If it’s the latter, then it would be interesting to know why she decided to make the issue all about guns and gun control–whether she doesn’t like gun owners or if that was just picked out as the headline of the day.

I don’t believe there’s nearly enough issue to actually assign an obvious political motivation, so don’t assume it’s part of some larger plot. It seems the only thing we know is that there’s a woman who is either nuts and wants her husband to pay the consequences for for it, or there’s a woman who wants her husband to suffer and will resort to insane tactics rather than dealing with it like an adult.

Vintage Firearms Teaching Aids

All the talk this week about firearms instruction and my own random love of pretty much all things vintage reading mean that I find myself wanting to share some of these vintage firearms books.

All pictures link to the original sales listing in case you decide you’re interested. Should you end up purchasing one of these old school paper books, there’s always the copper musket bookmark to keep your place when you need to take a break from reading to hit the range.

For what it’s worth, we get nothing from any sales generated from these links. I just honestly think some of this stuff is pretty cool. Thankfully, the internet gives me pause to avoid going nuts, but I would probably be impulse buying these books if I came across them in a thrift store or antique book store.

Rich People Try to Silence You Peon Gun Owners

Sportsman blogger Jim Braaten posted something that caught my attention today:

WTF? Ken Burns you just lost a follower and supporter. MT @kenburns: Today we launch StopTheNRA.com to do just that.

— Jim Braaten (@jim7226) June 5, 2013

I find it interesting that a site promoted by a New Yorker who is wealthy partly due to his films that show on taxpayer-funded public television is also funded by rich New York venture capitalists (with a California partner who founded the website promoting their efforts) who are using it to promote the political organization of a New York City billionaire is demanding that the ability of little voters who don’t have as much money as they do to organize, communicate, and take action be “stopped.”

Being a native of so-called flyover country, I get so sick of these self-important rich assholes from the coasts assuming that they can “stop” my political activities, “stop” my personal associations, and “stop” me from having a voice in my government. There is nothing about gun ownership that they aren’t ready to mock and attack, including hunting. In fact, the website’s biggest attack features on NRA’s actual statements and online presence in recent days are actually targeted to NRABlog, a site that has nothing to do with the politics of the debate at all. For them, the only motivation is to completely “stop” your way of life and “stop” your ability to participate in government the same way they do.

The Gun Vote Looks to be Fired Up

Missouri’s special election yesterday to fill the 8th district Congressional seat was expected to be a likely win for Republicans since, according to Charlie Cook, that’s a R+17 district. The final result ended up being an R+40 win. That’s not a typo, that’s a 40 point win in a district where Republicans have a registration advantage of less than half of that number.

I was not watching this race at all, but it appears that guns may have been a bit of an issue. The Reuters summary of the race mentioned that Democratic State Rep. Steve Hodges actually ran a campaign based on being pro-gun. The NRA ratings for the race show that there was still a distinction between the two. Republican State Rep. Jason Smith had a solid A rating that earned him the NRA endorsement while Hodges had an A-.

If gun owners did turn out and help make this such a landslide victory, then I hope it will inspire other gun owners in the rest of the country.

The Federal Gun Control Push

I find it quite interesting that just as Sen. Richard Blumenthal announces that he’s going to bog the pending immigration bill down with gun control amendments, Majority Leader Harry Reid comes out and announces he’s getting the gun control gang back together for another round of stand-alone legislation.

The timing of this makes it appear as though Reid is trying to keep the new gun control crusaders from derailing the entire White House agenda. Of course, if Reid has to do this every time they threaten a key piece of legislation, Sen. Joe Manchin may not ever get a break from having his name attached to gun control in West Virginia for the rest of his term. What he may have believed was a one time thing in the first year of his new term may become a semi-annual debate that always puts his name in the headlines for target the guns of West Virginians. I have no pity for him since he’s clearly digging in for the long haul on this fight. At least Sen. Pat Toomey looked at the writing on the wall and knew to drop the debate.

Standing with the NRA as a Sitting Governor

Surfing Etsy for some any interesting antique NRA memorabilia, I came across someone selling old magazine advertisements, including one of an old “I’m the NRA” ad that featured a sitting (at the time) Governor of what is now a deep blue state.

Governor Victor Atiyeh was a Republican governor of Oregon who served out two terms and also, according to Wikipedia, the first elected governor of Arab descent in the US. According to an index of archived materials about Gov. Atiyeh, the ad was apparently created between 1983-1985 during his second term. The index also mentions some interesting collections:

Clippings, correspondence (including copies of outgoing letters from Atiyeh), and a preliminary drawing of a gun case Atiyeh commissioned for one of his guns. Case of medals Atiyeh won during shooting competitions, as well as one Dolores Atiyeh won.

The Dolores mentioned is his wife. That indicates that they both enjoyed competitions. Based on the years mentioned in that index, some may even be from after the years he was first elected to the Oregon legislature.

Another MAIG Mayor Arrested

Carrboro, NC mayor Mark Chilton, a member of Mike Bloomberg’s group of criminal mayors, was arrested yesterday for trying to shut down the state capitol because he doesn’t like some of the bills being passed by officials elected by the people of North Carolina.