Category: Gun Rights

This is one barrel who’s bottom I’d be happy to scrape, but this blogger isn’t all that happy with Florida’s poor ranking.  I’m too busy to fisk today, but that’s OK, because Rustmeister did it for us.

Clayton Cramer thinks that Barack Obama is lying when he says he doesn’t want to take anyone’s guns.  I think so too.

Looks like HB89 has had some pro-gun amendments attached to it today that include:

• further allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry in recreational areas, wildlife management areas, and public transportation;
• allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry in restaurants; and
• creating a stricter time line for various stages of the concealed carry license application process.

This amendment was tacked on by Representative Tim Bearden, and would appear to contain several of the measures that were in HB 915.  This sounds like a positive development, but NRA is alerting that people need to contact their representatives in order to ensure passage.

In Central Pennsylvania, a “zero tolerance” policy is making it difficult for a junior rifle team to bring air guns into the school so they can hold matches.

To me this is the same type of issue as sex education in schools.  You can either have the kids learn responsible gun use from responsible adults, or they can learn from video games and movies.

Armed and Safe talks about a federal gun show bill. The Democrats aren’t going to touch this before the election, but it’s a good example of the types of bills that will await us if the Democrats manage to shore up their majority if Republicans decide to stay home in November.

Today’s quote is from Joe Huffman:

Come out of the closet. In the early days of the gay rights movement there was a phrase, “Silence equals death!”. Getting people to come out in the open about being a gun owner helps the anti-gun people realize we aren’t red-necked, knuckle dragging, Neanderthals, who beat their wives, complain about the “coloreds” lusting after our women folk, and whose idea of a good time is shooting our empties while chugging beer from the tailgate of our pickups. It worked for the gays and it can work for us.

I agree with this.  When I first started getting back into shooting in my mid 20s, after not having shot since I was a kid shooting cans, I was pretty quiet about it around coworkers.  These days virtually all my coworkers know I shoot Silhouette on Thursdays, am a member of the NRA, and am politically active in the gun rights movement.

It is a risk, because you never know when some corporate drone will decide you’re too dangerous for the company to keep around and fire you.  I think it’s a risk we need to take.  Others who have preceded us have taken far far greater risks in the name of preserving freedom, and if we can’t step up in this manner, we’re doomed.

Of course, the one caveat is that being out only helps if you’re actually normal.   If you’re building a bunker in your cubicle out of old QIC computer tape cartridges and reams of copier paper, in preparation for the day the UN sends in the blue helmeted ones to impose the New World Order on your workplace, you might want to think about staying in the closet.

Uncle is asking for some help:

So, there’s a lot of pro-gun activists on the Internet. I mean, there’s a ton. We’re just not all in the same place what with message boards, live journal, face book, etc, etc. If everyone actually got together, we’d be pretty influential, I would venture.

Any ideas on how to do that?

First you have to decide what your goal is, because online organizing is good for certain things, and not entirely good for other things. If the goal is grassroots mobilization, forums and blogs are effective, but I question whether we have the numbers to turn elections, which is the root of all political power. Politics is all local. A large percentage of my readers live here with me in Pennsylvania, so in a state wide race, I may have some very small effect on election outcomes. Online gun rights organizations like PAFOA, with many thousands of readers, could have even more. But could I mobilize my readership to defeat my local state representative? Probably not. A congressman? Probably not. You need a different kind of organization to affect those types of political outcomes, and for gun owners, they are, and will remain for the foreseeable future, local clubs and associations, along with NRA’s considerable election mobilization machine that works through a network of EVCs on the ground locally. This is why I think it’s important to have a debate about what we want a blanket online gun-owner project to accomplish. I don’t think online gunnies can’t affect political outcomes at all, but we have to play to our strengths, and understand our weaknesses.

Looks like some Democrats in Concord want to make the state house a gun free zone.

It would appear folks in the tenth congressional district have elected my kind of Democrat:

“As an avid sportsman, I value the time I spend taking my own children hunting. As a Member of Congress, I know that we must fight to preserve the Constitutional right for individual citizens to keep and bear arms. Hunting and shooting sports are valued traditions in Pennsylvania, and I will always fight to protect the Constitutional right to bear arms,” said Congressman Carney.

The Second Amendment Caucus is opposed to the banning of firearms, their accessories, their manufacture and their importation, and recognizes the right of lawful citizens to carry a weapon both at home and while traveling the nation.

“I have been vigilant to the assaults hurled upon the Second Amendment during my time in office and I joined the caucus to continue the fight,” continued Carney. “The Constitution is clear on this—Americans have the right to bear arms, and I will fight to protect it.”

Good.  Via SayUncle