The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
It focuses on Heller as a debate of source materials.
Dellinger considers Heller as a win for Gura and Scalia. Gura for his abilities and arguments, and Scalia for the opportunity to write such a big and important opinion on a subject that hadn’t really been addressed.
Found via Orin Kerr.
A developer in Connecticut is not stopping at anything to try and shut down Blue Trail Gun Range. First, they were sued over bullets supposedly hitting houses. Only they weren’t. But, the range went ahead and addressed some safety concerns and made changes.
Then the complaining party brought in family to use the strong arm of government and force a change.
Democratic Councilor Vincenzo DiNatale has asked local officials to consider whether Blue Trail, a North Branford Road range which abuts part of the reservoir, is posing a lead hazard to the water supply. …
DiNatale is the nephew of Pat DiNatale, a Durham resident who sued the range over alleged safety problems after bullets hit his home earlier this year.
What did they find? Nothing. Not a single bit of lead.
The legal lead limit for raw water is 50 parts per billion, while testing could not find even one part per billion in the water flowing from the Ulbrich, Adair said.
It doesn’t matter that they can’t even find one part per billion, as the headline states:
No lead, but issue isn’t dead
I’ve now got all of the feeds set up and running at the Blog Bash website for those looking for more robust blog coverage of the Para USA blogger training.
Since the site still primarily serves as an event planning site not meant to show a ton of posts, I have set up a category page which will feature all of the posts with excerpts so you can easily peruse the many posts going up any time.
I should add that I’ve included a new poll about whether Joe Huffman will beat Caleb in their shoot-out bet. So go vote!
Featured bloggers include:
SayUncle
A Keyboard and a .45
Of Arms & the Law
GunTruth
The View from North Central Idaho
Call me Ahab
Sharp as a Marble
Smallest Minority
Snowflakes in Hell
View from the Porch
If this could be produced in 6.8 SPC, I’d totally shoot IHMSA big bore with this.
I’m worried we’re seeing a repeat of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court endorsements, where NRA’s endorsement differs from that of other pro-gun groups. In 2007, NRA endorsed Michael Krancer, while other groups endorsed Maureen Lally-Green. The end result was neither of them making it onto the Supreme Court, and the seat going to Debra Todd. Gun owners lose.
In the race between Jason Altmire and Melissa Hart, gun owners win no matter which way this race goes. That’s always a good position to be in. But it is making me wonder exactly what FOAC endorsement policies are. I know NRA has gotten a big of flack for their incumbent endorsement policy, where given two roughly equal pro-gun candidates, the endorsement goes to the incumbent by policy. This is smart politics because ninety percent of all incumbents are re-elected. The reason to make it a policy is so everyone expects it, and no one holds it against you. Politicians also know that they are sure to benefit in keeping their seats if they keep their records good, even if they are up against a pro-gun challenger. Overall, the policy raises the value of NRA’s endorsements.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Melissa Hart, and if I lived in her district, she could count on my vote. However taking off my voting citizen hat, and putting on my second amendment activist hat, I have to see things pretty differently, because I don’t see much to be gained alienating Jason Altmire, especially when he’s leading in the polls. The fact of the matter is, Jason Altimire has been good to gun owners. It might be true that his party hasn’t, but do we want the gun rights movement to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, or do we want there to be a bipartisan consensus? I think it’s pretty clear under which situation our rights would be more secure.
It’s true that the 110th Congress hasn’t provided as much opportunity for Jason Altmire to stand out compared to Melissa Hart, but on the important issues, he’s been with us. He signed the Congressional Brief favoring Heller. He signed on to BATF reform, concealed carry reciprocity, national park carry, and preempting DC Council from regulating guns. I would say he’s been a leader on our issue.
Now, I’m certainly not saying NRA never makes mistakes in their endorsements. They do. Nor am I saying that every pro-gun group always has to get behind NRA’s endorsements. There have certainly been times where I have felt candidates got the endorsement when they didn’t deserve it, but if that’s the feeling with Congressman Altmire, I’d really like to understand what that’s based on. I’d like to develop a better understanding of what FOAC, and other pro-gun groups in Pennsylvania consider when it comes to endorsements. Obviously key votes, and details of what go into any individual endorsement aren’t something that needs to be shared, but I think the overall process needs to be reasonably understood. I can certainly understand why folks want to support Mellisa Hart, both as a citizen and a gun owner, but the message gun owners are sending to Jason Altmire is that it doesn’t matter how much he supports them, it’ll never be enough. In the 111th Congress, what incentive does he have to remain so receptive to the concerns of gun owners, when they tried to help unseat him? As gun rights activists, we must be cautious of letting our own personal political preferences get in the way of what’s best for the overall movement. The smart move here, even if you disagree with NRA’s endorsement of Altmire, would be to issue no endorsement at all.
“When I first read about this, I couldn’t believe it was legal,” said Marsha McCartney, president of the Texas chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “It turns out it wasn’t.”
No, turns out that it is legal. They are depending on school regulations governing the hiring of security personnel, which require them to be sworn officers if they are to be armed.
If a board of trustees authorizes a person employed as security personnel to carry a weapon, the person must be a commissioned peace officer.
Teachers are not hired security personnel, and the Texas state concealed carry statute is pretty clear on the matter. Harold School District policy is a problem for the gun control movement, because we all know what’s going to happen if this policy is allowed to move forward: “A whole lotta nothing.” They must convince the public the world will end if guns are allowed in schools — all it takes is a few contrary cases for the gig to be up.
We’re down to one month on the Summer Rifle Match for the Gun Blog Rifles Competition Series. I haven’t yet gotten any entries, but that’s OK, since I figured everyone else was waiting until the last minute like I am, though I am going to try to shoot both smallbore and high-power, both open sights, when I get back from North Carolina.
I’ll be pretty light posting today, due to preparations for Blackwater. Tonight I need to hit the range, just to polish up a bit too. A bit of bad news in that Bitter will not be attending with me. She got a last minute invite to the launch of Sportsmen for McCain in Scranton this weekend, and it was just too good of a networking opportunity for her to pass up.
I will be covering the training with Todd Jarrett while I’m there. Blackwater has seen to it that we have WiFi, so we should be in good shape for coverage. And don’t forget Michael Bane will be there filming for both Down Range TV, and The Shooting Gallery
Applies more to pistol shooters, but here goes:
Gun shows will continue at Cow Palace, since the bill to prohibit them was defeated in the California Senate. According to John Rosenthal, there will be terrorists in caves in Pakistan who will cheer this ruling.