The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
This is an interesting editorial talking about the surge in crime in Australia. I link this for this quote, which you think would explain why measures taken failed to work:
Sydney University gun control researcher Professor Philip Alpers said: “Firearms are the most desirable objects in the criminal world and they (criminals) will go to great lengths to get them.”
You don’t say? I wish my job were that easy.
Walls of the City writes Laura Washington, informing her about our embracing the term People of the Gun, and gets a response. From the point of view of an outsider looking in, you have to wonder what she has to be thinking. Within a few days of her putting “People of the Gun” to paper, we have our own web site and merchandising.
Hell, even I can hardly believe it. Â These Internets are surely a wondrous thing. Â Thanks Al Gore!
The geek reports The Supreme Court may have taken Heller based on this article from MS-NBC. I’m not sure MS-NBC knows what they are talking about here. I can’t find any other source for this, including the one run by the attorneys in the case.
I’m pretty sure this is a case of sloppy reporting.
UPDATE: Looks like it is:
The headline “SCOTUS takes HELLER!” is hereby demoted. I got suckered by sucky reporting @ MSNBC…aparently, deciding whether to take the case counts as “consider”.
This from the docket site.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
I was almost ready to have a beer in honor. I guess I’ll just have to have a beer because… I want to have a beer instead.
Dave Hardy links to an ATF internal related document outlining the problems at the agency:
Field agents have attempted to challenge the un-ethical, and illegal actions of field managers through various means in recent years only to meet with retaliation so destructive it almost inevitably results in the challenges or allegations being withdrawn.Fear of ATF leadership has replaced transparency. Lack of trust and the absence of good faith in trying to resolve these issues have caused a growing number of Agents to rely upon legal means to invoke the protections and seek redress. Record numbers of EEOC, OIG, OSC, whistleblower and internal grievances face the new management team. Requests for congressional intervention by Agents across the country…
Read the whole thing. Dave’s experiences with the federal buearaucracy seem to mirror a lot of this. That’s why I’ve said that ATF reform or even abolishment aren’t going to fix the problem, because they will be temporary at best, or will shift into another agency. The only thing that will work is altering or abolishing federal gun laws, to give whatever agency is enforcing them less leeway, and fewer laws to enforce.
This is from the comments, but I thought it warranted highlighting in a separate post.
Thankfully, Philly Chefs for Choice are striking back against the crazed bunch of zealots who would love nothing more than to take away more and more of our choices. In an event called “Philly Foie For Five,†about 20 Philly restaurants will offer foie gras dishes for just $5. The event goes from October 1st to October 7th. (More info at www.artisanfarmers.org )
The event is designed to expose more people to foie gras. If no one speaks against the minority activists, we will lose the right to eat foie gras. And the slope is slippery. Veal may go next. Then chicken. These activists aren’t going to stop until they have us all eating legumes and liking it. The final strike, if it were up to these activists, truly would be an end to meat-eating.
There are only three foie gras farms in the United States. We aren’t talking about “agri-business†here. We’re talking about small farms producing a small amount of product. But this is why foie gras has become an easy target for the minority zealots in Philadelphia, Chicago, Austin, and many states. In many situations, property owners have been targeted with vandalism and threats have been made against the lives of their families. Protesting is one thing, terrorism is quite another.
Ultimately, business owners are punished by these people for running their businesses legally, in the way they see fit. They lose customers to the screaming hordes (who wants to walk through a screaming band of zealots for lunch?) and lose more when they are forced to give in and take foie gras off the menu. Business owners lose thousands of dollars just fighting these people off. Commerce suffers in cities where these activists attack.
Those who talk about the cruelty of the foie gras process are sadly misinformed. They are putting humans in the place of the animals. By this logic, we should be horrified that the poor things stand around in the winter without shoes and socks.
That is the basic misconception exploited by animal rights organizations, that ducks are like people. Yes, a tube in the throat is not comfortable for humans. Neither is swallowing whole, spiny wriggling fish, which many species of ducks delight in.
In the same way, an enlarged liver in water fowl is a normal process, not a disease process. In fact, most birds have the same mechanism. Have you ever seen fat hummingbirds? Yet they sure take on a lot of sugar water before they migrate. The extra energy is stored in an enlarged liver.
For the activists and others not well-informed on the issue, foie gras production has been carefully examined by animal welfare advocates who have determined it to be humane. Unfortunately, these activists (or terrorists, if you will) are uneducated and ignorant of the truth. They may even know the facts but chose to ignore them out of zealotry for their cause.
Those who wish to know more about foie gras production, there are two articles at the bottom of the first page of www.artisanfarmers.org that discuss the animal welfare aspects of it. For some additional perspective, see: http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/sep05/050901q.asp
Actually, even for people it’s not all that uncomfortable to have a tube down your throat. Endoscopes are typically done while the patient is awake, sometimes with drugs to suppress the gag reflex. Birds don’t have gag reflexes, and many young are fed through regurgitation by the parent its young’s mouth.
Clayton Cramer has a great post up illustrating some of the things we’ve been arguing about this week in regards to HR2640, and mental health firearms prohibitions in general. There’s more due process involved in a mental health prohibition than many people realize.
Ahab asks a good question about whether a black powder shotgun would be subject to the National Firearms Act if you were to saw off the barrel to under 18 inches. I don’t know the answer to that.
I’d suggest calling the ATF, but even if the answer they give you is yes, doesn’t mean they won’t decide to arrest you later.
I have to agree with Bitter here that it’s a really bad idea for the gun rights movement to tie their fortunes to the Republican Party. If recent history is any indication, that ship, if not actively sinking, definitely has more than a few holes in the hull.  The Republicans might be out in the political wilderness for a while.  I liked the Republicans more as a minority party than a majority party, and I hope that they will find their mojo again and start standing for things people actually want to vote for.
Until then, we have to find a way to work with Democrats, or our gun rights are doomed. This isn’t the time to be snubbing pro-gun Democrats like Bill Richardson.
Sometimes self-defense stories illustrate important points. We’ve all seen a lot of stories that contradict a lot of the myths out there, on both sides, about using firearms to defend your life.  This is an important one from New Jersey. Why is it important? This is why:
The woman ran to her bedroom, locked the door and grabbed her husband’s handgun and ammunition, Traina said.
The gun is legally registered to the woman’s husband, he said.
She then ran into the bathroom, locked that door and loaded the weapon while sitting on the floor.
Emphasis mine. The Garden State has decreed that, once the technology is available, all firearms sold in New Jersey will only be operable by the authorized user, except to law enforcement, who apparently didn’t want anything to do with the technology.
I suppose this woman could have thrown the smart gun at the man trying to attack her. It might be kind of heavy with all those electronic and mechanical extras in it, after all.
What a shocker this article is:
According to McNally, their tactics have ranged from chants and name-calling (addressing individuals as “duck rapists”) to firing bullhorns directly in her face. Other restaurant owners have taken foie gras items off their menus, but so far, McNally hasn’t backed down. “We don’t believe that, overall, we should be told what to eat,” she says.
As we talked on the drive, it became clear that there is more at issue than animal welfare — the way McNally sees it, her business is at stake as well. London has 70 outdoor seats that she needs to turn over at least twice a night to make payroll. “With the bullhorns and the screaming, you can’t sit there and dine,” she says. “That’s taking money away from the waiter and from us.”
Everyone has a right to free speech, but that doesn’t cross into disrupting your neighborhood such that your neighbors “quiet enjoyment” is disrupted. The Philadelphia Police should be allowed to arrest these people for disturbing the peace.
Turns out that maybe Foie Gras isn’t as cruel as the animal rights psychos are making it out to be:
McNally and I arrived at the farm around noon and met Izzay Yanay, co-owner of Hudson Valley. A former member of the Israeli Defense Force, Yanay projects an intense, almost defiant pride when showing off his farm. “Make them come — all of them,” he says. He’s entertained roughly two tours a week for the past 20 years, hosting chefs and journalists alike. He promises unrestricted access and encourages me to take pictures.
Dr. Lawrence Bartholf, a practicing livestock veterinarian who operates independent of the farm, accompanies us. Bartholf often chaperones Hudson Valley tours to answer questions related to the birds’ physiology “It’s one thing to use facts to argue a point,” he says. “But when [protesters] use outright lies and distortions and half-truths, that’s where I draw the line.”
Leftist activists using outright lies, distortions and half-truths? Nah…. you don’t say? What a pity Philadelphia City Council is buying this crap, instead of arresting these people.