Guns – Page 269 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Excellent!

Magpul is moving Colorado residents to the head of the queue:

We are proud to announce that within a matter of days we will be going live with a new program. Due to a bill currently moving through the Colorado legislature, there is the possibility that Colorado residents’ ability to purchase standard capacity magazines will soon be infringed. Before that happens, and Magpul is forced to leave the state in order to keep to our principles, we will be doing our best to get standard capacity PMAGs into the hands of any Colorado resident that wants them.

I hope no one has issues with this. I’m waiting for more PMAGs, and I am totally OK with this. Given the threat they face, the state needs to be flooded with unmarked magazines. They are working on programs for other affected states as well. Good on them. Magpul has been great during this time of crisis.

Reporting on Shall-Issue in Illinois

Thirdpower is keeping up with the situation. A summary would seem to be the Chicago politicians are still trying to crap all over everything. Looks like their pet bill was withdrawn, so now they are attempting to crapify NRA’s bill. Like petulant children who are mad they can’t have everything their way.

It’s Gadgety

I think the fun thing about this Wired article is that I agree, but I have zero accessories for any of my ARs. All of them are plain as jane. I don’t even like optics, and use the standard A2 sights on the carry handle. From the article:

â€œYouâ€™re doing great,â€ said Justin Harvel, founder of Black Rain Ordnance and maker of the gun I was shooting.

â€œItâ€™s not me,â€ I replied. â€œIâ€™ve never shot like this in my life. Itâ€™s gotta be this gun.â€

â€œYeah, itâ€™s definitely not your daddyâ€™s hunting rifle, is it?â€

Nope, you can shoot it all afternoon, whereas daddy’s hunting rifle will hurt you since it’s more powerful shot-for-shot. The article contains a number of inaccuracies, but is overall decent. For instance, the NRA never supported the 1994 ban, even after the sunset provision was inserted.

More on the Halvorson Race

I have to agree with Glenn Reynolds, that when you have to dump a cool two million to get an anti-gun politician elected in Chicago that’s not a position of strength. But a Kelly win here is going to be spun as a bellwether, and you can bet Bloomberg and our opponents are going to ride that particular horse as far as it will take them. We’ll know shortly what the result is. Given what’s been arrayed against us, and the proclivities of the district, I’m not all that optimistic.

This district can’t be all that different from Allyson Schwartz’s district here, and I can’t fathom that seat ever going to someone like Halvorson. But Schwartz’s seat is going to be empty when she runs for Governor, so I would say if any of you are reading this, and are union members or other such Democrats who like guns, let’s see if we can get Bloomberg to burn 2 million dollars defending that seat too.

Justice Memo Gets More Traction

Unfortunately, it’s only getting traction in conservative media, appearing at Breitbart, The Washington Times, and The Washington Examiner. The media I don’t think has much incentive to report on a story that’s bad for the Administration. Politico is currently running a story about Obama’s faltering gun strategy in the Senate, as our opponents worry about the ticking clock. I’m still concerned, but becoming less concerned about Coburn’s participation in this charade, since it’s looking to me like his participation may be to stall for time and act as a spoiler. But keep in mind this is just rank speculation at this point.

Pennsylvania Cities Get in on Gun Control Lobbying Game

I can’t tell you how very happy I am that Pennsylvania’s Governor, Tom Corbett, has made it pretty clear that gun control will not be on his agenda. Even though there are many anti-rights bills introduced, there’s no serious threat that any of them will move at the moment. That said, it’s not stopping local towns from weighing in on the fight.

On the pro-rights side, New Britain, PA is considering a resolution to reaffirm the Second Amendment is an individual right and that the town “strongly objects to the passage of any new law or regulation … that infringes upon Second Amendment rights.”

Explaining why she wanted the resolution, [Councilwoman Mary Pat] Holewinski said, â€œWhen I was elected and sworn in, I swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution. I introduced it as a means for borough council to show support for the Constitution.â€

On the anti-rights side, we see a bit more action. First there was the effort by Lower Makefield to lobby for ending preemption, but they deserve credit for rescinding their resolution. Now, we have Upper Moreland using town resources to lobby for more gun control, seemingly for full registration in addition to semi-automatic rifle bans and more.

Tuesday News Dump

I’m not feeling much inspiration today, so I’ll dump some news items. Hopefully this won’t be it for the day. It usually isn’t, but sometimes it’s tough finding stories that have good angles.

A Colorado Update from Michael Bane. It’s not over there, by a long shot. Even Hickenlooper is having some doubts. Keep the pressure on. Publicola sees Bloomberg’s fingerprints all over what’s happening in Colorado.

Beretta has been turning up the pressure in Maryland. “You balk, we walk,” is the watchword of the day. I am very pleased with the response from the industry. Remember when you had to worry about the industry as much as you had to worry about the politicians?

Florida stand your ground law is staying.

The real threat is back-door registration, which leads too…

A rather lengthy but excellent podcast with Glenn ReynoldsÂ of Instapundit. There is some talk about guns. One reason I follow Professor Reynolds is that he is such a happy warrior, and I find that quite refreshing compared to how dour and depressing some pundits can get. I try to be a happy warrior as well. I don’t always succeed, but I try.

Looks like SEUI has backed down on showing up in Albany to support gun control, while 10,000 gun owners show up to oppose it. Bitter and I were thinking if they tried their usual thug tactics with our people it would end badly. There are a lot of good union jobs at stake with Remington, so backing down was the right thing to do in the first place. Dave Hardy notes this is called a heckler’s veto. Jacob also notes the folly.

SayUncle has been tracking Joe Biden’s noted gun expertise. So have the phony baloney “fact checkers” at the Washington Post, who conclude all this legal mumbo jumbo is just too confusing to draw any real conclusions. Apparently it’s not too confusing for prosecutors.

Joe has a random thought of the day about the Second Amendment. They’ve lost the battle about the meaning of the Second Amendment, but the battle to make it a meaningful right, rather than a second class right, is still very much active.

Tam talks about Califorming, a phenomena many Westerners, and especially Coloradans these days, are unfortunately all too familiar with. I visited a friend who was born and raised Montana in 2003, who is a Democrat, and even he had a pretty severe disdain for migrants from California.

A Virginia Beach pizza shop: Bring your firearm. From the looks of the place, you’ll probably want to check to ensure no fur from those wookie suits ends up in your pizza. (FYI, for the uninitiated, wookie suit is a long running inside joke among gun bloggers. We actually love wookie suiters, and many of us are wookie suiters at heart)

Anti-gun members of the Illinois House aren’t giving up easily, and are pushing their own bill which comes up very short in terms of respecting the right as the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has demanded. It really is like a child throwing a temper tantrum. The NRA Bill, which we do want to support, is HB997.

A Disappointing Position on Insurance Mandates

Nelson Lund has been one of the leading law professors in the right to keep and bear arms movement.Â I very much agreed with his paper that police use needed to be looked at when evaluating restrictions, and believe that is a valuable standard to promote for review of gun control measures. That’s whyÂ I’m quite disappointed to see he once endorsed the idea that we can introduce severe financial burdens on the exercise of a right. Granted, this is from a 1987 paper, and perhaps Professor Lund has changed his mind since, but it’s difficult for me to see how an insurance requirement is respectful of the Second Amendment. What other right to we require one to bear insurance to exercise? Insurance companies are in the business of assessing risk, and then essentially betting you that what you’re insuring against will never happen. That risk is going to be higher for someone who’s poor, and lives in a neighborhood they are more likely to need to defend themselves. An insurance measure like this would make it nearly impossible for the poor to exercise their rights under the Constitution, while middle class suburbanites would likely find premiums affordable. I don’t see how that can possibly be constitutional.

h/t Instapundit.

On Armalite

People are getting angry at Armalite for refusing to stop selling law enforcement firearms that civilians can’t own. I have a post-ban Armalite M15A4 AR, which I bought back in 2001, and I’ll give you another reason. I’ve always been convinced something has always been slightly out off spec with it. My Bushmaster XM15-E2S (back from Bushy’s Maine days) runs flawlessly with a wide variety of ammo. The Armalite is very picky about ammo. The factory 10 round magazine works flawlessly, but it’s jam-o-matic time with a lot of other magazines that function just fine in my Bushmaster carbine. Now, when 2004 rolled around, I converted the rifle to a “no-ban” configuration by grinding away the muzzle compensator and replace it with a birdcage flash suppressor, and adding a bayonet lug, but the trouble preceded me touching it. My theory has been that perhaps the magazine catch is slightly not where it should be, which causes a lot of the jamming issues when combined with certain kinds of ammo.

One thing I have not tried in the M15A4 are Magpul PMags, but I’ll get to that experiment once I can get over the fact that dumping a few mags of .223 these days is dinner and drinks at the local steakhouse. Even though I didn’t pay that much for that ammo, it’s still in the back of my mind.

Paxton Quigley

Tam notes that someone from the 1990s girls with guns culture has turned on the cause. You can put me squarely in the “Paxton Who?” camp. I had never heard of this woman before Tam’s post just now. Tam notes:

Jesus, Paxton,Â et tu?

It only takes one awshit to erase a dozen attagirls. I’m washing my hands of her. Let the Zumboing commence.

Zumbo was someone well known. I’m guessing Ms. Quigley is one of the many self-promoters in this issue whose day in the sun passed long ago. Do all political issues attract the kinds of self-promoters we do?

UPDATE: Apparently she has a blog.