Guns – Page 123 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Who’s the Sad Panda?

Gun control got a snub from the Commander in Chief during the State of the Union. Not a mention, not a one. The best they mustered was a vague reference to Newtown. Not even Newtown, CT, just Everytown, Newtown. Shit, the President worked harder to win the hearts and minds of the French this year. The French! They got a speech and James Taylor song. What did the gun control crowd get?Â Even the left is recognizing it.

Pundits might be debating who’s really winning the gun control debate, but it’s apparent that even the true believers in the Obama White House believe it’s lost cause enough to not even be worth more than a vague dog whistle in the SOTU. That’s what they’ve been reduced to. That is what Bloomberg and his rich buddies are getting behind as a winning idea. Even the White House doesn’t believe it anymore.

Bringing Colorado Back into the Fold

I was pleased to see there might be a ray of hope after the 2014 elections, to bring Colorado back to free America:

The state legislative session just started this week. It is already apparent that Republicans are aiming to repeal the unpopular gun control bills and expand gun rights:

House Bill (HB) 15-1009 would repeal the magazine ban

HB 15-1049 would extend the â€œcastle doctrineâ€ to include businesses

HB 15-1050 would repeal the expanded background check and fees

Senate Bill 15-032 would allow concealed carry without a permit

Will any of these bills make it through the legislature and onto Democrat Gov. Hickenlooperâ€™s desk? Would he sign them? He already told a meeting of Colorado sheriffs last year that he hadnâ€™t really read the earlier bills and that it was a mistake to sign them. It would be a great opportunity to see if there was any truth behind his words.

Read the whole thing. Things sound very promising. It would be a tremendous rebuke to Bloomberg to bring Colorado back from the brink of being an anti-gun state, and to do it with Hickenlooper’s signature. In fact, it would be the first time, I can recall, a state would have repealed laws such as this. Every other state that’s started going down Colorado’s path has only gotten worst over time. Once the scales tip, there’s usually no going back.

Colorado has a strong libertarian streak compared to many other states. Unfortunately, the Colorado GOP has been largely unable to jettison the parts of its coalition which are a severe liability to it. Let’s hope we can bring Colorado back and keep it back.

We Have Our Share of Rage Mongers

Jim Geraghty has this to say about recent incidents in the name of #BlackLivesMatter:

My fellow men and women of the Rightâ€¦ yes, we have our bad days. Yes, there are times somebody on our side embarrasses us or does something stupid. But we can all thank our lucky stars we donâ€™t have idiots, losers, and misanthropic rage-mongers like this claiming to act in the name in our cause.

You sure about that Jim? The thing that pisses me off about the current situation in Washington State is that we need people who engage in peaceful civil disobedience. We need people who are willing to engage in some Irish Democracy. I have no beef, in principle, with the “We Will Not Comply” crowd. But why would any sensible person want to live under a horrendously bad law when there’s an opportunity to make it just a bad law? To me, you take ground back where you can.

I get that a lot of people are unhappy with Alan Gottlieb because of the Manchin-Toomey deal. I was not happy with him after Manchin-Toomey either. It was a bad deal, and we had the votes to kill it, so we killed it. We were very lucky that Gottlieb’s endorsement didn’t cost us that vote, because it was very close. My fear at the time was some of our weaker Senators would use his seal of approval as pro-gun cover to switch their vote to a “yes”. I think it’s fair to criticize this move.

But I think trying to shit on other hard-working activists who are trying to take as much ground back right now, because they think they can get it, is beyond the pale. Taking back lost ground is not compromise. Even the simple measure of exempting transfers to Washington LCCP holders would destroy I594’s usefulness as a scheme to register all firearms. I don’t see the logic in not seeking even a simple exemption like that if the votes could be mustered for it in the legislature.

The law doesn’t cease becoming the law just because you choose to ignore it. They aren’t going to arrest people en mass engaging in political protest. They aren’t going to arrest someone who transfers a firearm to a friend. What they will do is take cases on the margin, and make examples out of those folks to intimidate the rest of the scofflaws. This is not a plea to comply with the law, just a dose of reality for how it’s going to work. If we can take action now to ease the law to make fewer scofflaws, we ought to.

The Media Will Spin Things For Their Own Purposes

I was a bit concerned when I noticed that The Truth About Guns was running a high profile “simulation” of the Charlie Hedbo massacreÂ given that site’s propensity for grandiose self-promotion. I don’t think my fears were unwarranted. The resulting story in the press essentially conveys the notion that armed self-defense is useless. It was even linked approvingly byÂ our favorite Brady Board member.

I’m absolutely not criticizing the idea of running a simulation like this. It’s never a bad idea to see what we can learn. What was a bad idea was inviting the media along in the name of self-promotion and publicity, before the results were understood and digested. Even if TTAG’s subsequent analysis turns out to be very useful, the media’s version of the story is already out there; running away is a better tactic than armed self-defense. It only adds to the arguments of our opponents.

It may very well be that in a Charlie Hedbo scenario, you’re pretty well screwed no matter what you do. No one except fools argue that a defensive firearm is a talisman that wards off all evil and harm. Nor would anyone argue that sometimes a hasty retreat is the best way to stay alive. But that’s a very different thing than offering the media and our opponents an opportunity to reinforce what they already believe: that armed self-defense is a myth, and you’re better off just running away.

NRA Suing Three Pennsylvania Cities

The cities are Lancaster, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. One presumes that the timing of these suits is related to an ill-advised lawsuit launched by U.S. Shield Law. These are the three cities that have thumbed their noses at the new preemption law, and are actively working to have the law invalidated by the courts as unconstitutional. They attorney handling the case is Jonathan Goldstein, who is a good choice, and is experienced in arguing gun-related cases. In the mean time, Attorney Joshua Prince’s campaign against the many municipalities across Pennsylvania is bearing a lot of fruit. It’s practically daily a municipality agrees to rescind its law. Only Lancaster, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have, so far, been willing to put their taxpayer dollars on the line to thumb their noses at the rights of their citizens to have gun laws be uniform throughout the commonwealth.

Journalists for Blue Laws

The Express-Times are standing behind New Jersey and Pennsylvania’s blue law that bans hunting on Sunday, originally enforced because you should be in church. They are arguing hunters have to share the great outdoors, which they largely pay for, with other people who don’t pay for it. I am not a hunter, but it’s very important for gun rights in this country to turn around its decline. There are plenty of people on our side who are happy to throw the “fudds” off the lifeboat, but the hunting cultures nonetheless provides a lot of bodies to the gun rights movement, and it’s decline will hurt us at the end of the day. Nearly every other state in the country allows Sunday hunting. There is no reason that New Jersey and Pennsylvania should be among the last states to repeal this blue law.

Epic Pearl Clutching Over Toy Guns

Don’t ever let anyone tell you no one is out to take your toy guns. When I was a kid, my mother didn’t let me play with toy guns, and look where it got me?

I question the need for any toy gun. This sends a message to our kids that guns are OK, you can play with them and maybe later use the real thing. The entire â€œgun cultureâ€ needs questioning. We have enough educational, fun, constructive toys available for kids so that guns with their negative message are not needed in the toy box.â€

How all the kids that grew up in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s managed to survive, when toy guns still looked pretty real,Â must be a great mystery. The world was safer when we didn’t have so much pearl clutching over things like this. Back when just about every kid was free range, you didn’t have all the school shootings, and didn’t have zero tolerance, zero brains policies. And somehow everyone managed to survive.

The Onion Comes to Life: Bloomberg Teaching About Guns!

It was difficult for me to believe this wasn’t a satire site at first:Â

â€œThe workshop, funded by Everytown for Gun Safety, will offer independent expert briefings and specialized reporting skills training to enhance the practical ability of journalists to report on guns and gun violence knowledgeably, ethically and effectively,â€ the website reported. â€œThe workshop will cover such topics as state and federal gun laws; patterns of gun sales and gun trafficking; national trends and polling; education and prevention initiatives; social, economic and public health impacts; and special populations (e.g. children and youth, women and returning veterans.)â€

SoÂ Bloomberg is going to teach journalists about how to report on guns. Actually, I think this is a smart move on their part. First, most journalists don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to this topic, so they won’t be able to tell they are being spoon fed bullshit. Second, it gives Bloomberg’s group a chance to tout that they have expertise on this issue. They don’t actually needÂ expertise, but by passing themselves off as experts they gain a chance to become that journalists go-toÂ source when they are looking for information on a topic. More importantly, it will connect journalists Bloomberg’s preferred experts.

NRA has never done anything like this, as far as I know. But the preconceptions that most journalists have about NRA would make this a difficult proposition for them. Like I said, Bloomberg may be a billionaire busybody who isn’t afraid to spend his money screwing over the little people, but he didn’t earn his fortune by being a fool. They’ve been very good at playing to their advantages.

NRA Luddites?

It looks like the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation has nominated NRA for a Luddite Award? Why? For opposing smart gun technology. I doubt that ITIF really understands the issue very much, or even comprehends the opposition. It just seems backwards to them, probably. Who could stand in the way of such progress?

I had never heard of this outfit until I found this, but I’d encourage folks to go vote for something else, lest our opposition get to make a media story out of it, to help their efforts to shove smart gun technology down everyone’s throats, whether the market wants it or not.

As a technology worker, I’m getting really tired of people in technology opining about things from a position of ignorance. But we’re dealing with a DC based K-street think tank non-profit, and if you look at a few of the backgrounds of the key players, they aren’t real tech people. These are a bunch of DC insider types.

Monday News Links – 01-12-2014

It’s a miserable Monday morning here in Southeastern, PA. Wintery mix is the worst, but fortunately, it’s converted pretty much all to rain. I don’t mind a few good snows for a season, but we’ve been fortunate, so far, that this winter isn’t shaping up like the last one. The French terrorist attacks were pretty much dominating the headlines last week, so these news links will include more off topic ones than normal:

Cars getting safer is going to become a problem for us. Even though the vast majority “gun deaths” are suicide, you can bet our opponents will play to the hilt when they can claim this is the “Number one cause of death in America!”

George Zimmerman needs to himself, and all of us a favor and check himself into a monastery.

The Mousqueton A.M.D. – France’s Mini-14.

More gun control in France? If what you do fails, just do the same thingÂ only twice as hard.

Journalist, suddenly realizing they are targets of global jihad, debate the utility of concealed weapons.

I agree that this is shameful.

“If Jews Flee, the Republic Will Be a Failure.” Well, you know, there have already been four failed French Republics.

A lot of anti-gun folks are saying a lot of stupid things about the late happenings in France.

Looks like there was some jury nullification in a case of felon-in-posession.

The military is rejecting Beretta’s M9A3, it’s attempt to kill the Army’s Modular Handgun Program. I’m not sure anyone has considered the possibility that this is paybacks from the Administration over Beretta’s defiant stance against gun control in the wake of Sandy Hook.

Walking a mile in the other guy’s shoes. More from Tim at Gun Nuts Media.

Every year a number of Pennsylvania legislators, mostly from Philadelphia, introduce nonsense legislation that they can take back to the constituents as proof that they are doing something. It’s not intended to go anywhere. This is among that type of legislation: “Bill in the PA House of Representatives: Ban human silhouette targets.”

I don’t have cable, so I managed to finally watch the PBS Documentary on NRA on Roku. It was so filled with tired arguments and rehashed nonsense that to be honest, I don’t even really remember watching it. It was all old news, and it covered no new ground.

More fallout from Operation Chokepoint?

Fight terrorism. Shoot back!