Unfortunately, the Governor is right. New Jersey is probably the most hostile legislature in the country when it comes to gun rights. Christie is coming at this issue in the same manner the Obama Administration is, in that he’d really prefer it go away, doesn’t want to burn any political capital on the issue, but at the same time doesn’t want to piss anyone off too much.
Category: Politics
Harry Reid’s “Stimulus”
Or perhaps anti-stimulus. Apparently Reid thinks that ending prostitution in Nevada is going to somehow going to grow the economy:
“One of the businessmen in that meeting told me he simply couldn’t believe that one of the biggest businesses in the county he was considering for his new home is legal prostitution,” he said.
Sounds like a great way to help Nevada’s economy, shuttering the biggest industry in a county. You’d think that would be a fringe benefit to a lot of executives.
Unsurprising
Rahm wins in Chicago. I don’t think it could have gone any other way. The machine probably would not have allowed it. Rahm was the anointed one.
Bean Bags?
Dave Hardy points to this Fox News article that has an astonishing revelation in the case of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Terry:
Terry told us contrary to Border Patrol claims that bean bags were not deployed that night, she claims sources inside the agency have told her family, “Eight bandits came down the trail, Brian’s team yelled, ‘Policia, Policia,’ and he said they started retreating. These eight bandits. But then two of the border patrol shot the bean bags and then they opened fire.”
Imagine you’re running contraband over the border, and a group of men are charging down a trail yelling “Police! Police!” but actively firing their guns. What’s your reaction going to be? I’m going to go on a gut feeling that the police don’t actively fire firearms at suspects unprovoked and am going to make the eminently reasonable assumption that I’m being ambushed by other banditos yelling “Police!” to keep me from shooting back. Either way, hearing crack of gunfire and probably hearing the rounds break branches on the way out, it’s not unreasonable to take defensive action at that point, even if you’re smuggling contraband over the border.
If this was an approved tactic, someone needs to answer for it, because it’s extremely irresponsible. Not only does it put the border patrol agents in jeopardy, the gunman in this case could have a plausible self-defense claim. Even if they were police, shooting preemptively, not in self-defense, is murder, and how can a reasonable be expected to tell the difference between live rounds and bean bags?
PGC To Charge for Public Range Use
Looks like the Game Commission is looking to require either a valid PA hunting license, or a range permit to be able to use PGC ranges throughout the state. Considering that PGC is funded with hunting license fees, and these ranges are maintained solely by the PGC, I think this is a fair move. Anyone who’s frequented Pennsylvania ranges knows they are crowded and poorly maintained. This strikes me as a fair way to manage the resource, provided the fees for the range permits are funneled into maintaining the ranges. Looks like there will be provisions for taking guests and kids too, without them also needing a range permit.
Protesting Philly Gun Shop
Looks like Heeding God’s Call is now Neighborhood Partners to End Gun Violence. The MO of the group is the same, however: basically protest a gun shop to try to get them to sign some kind of code of conduct. Clearly they were emboldened when Colosimo’s gun shop folded. Every Philly gun shops is now, apparently, to blame for the violence in Philadelphia.
Criminal Cartoons
I’m sorry, but this made me laugh out loud:
A wise reader wonders if the appearance of the PBS children’s-series character “Arthur†at a press conference with House Democrats runs afoul of the Hatch Act. …
If the “Arthur†is a federal employee, the Hatch Act permits federal employees to “attend and be active at political rallies and meetings,†so that would seem to cover it. But the Hatch Act also prohibits â€engaging in political activity while in official uniform.†Obviously, this provision is most frequently applied to military personnel.
This sounds like the kind of discussion I would get into with friends after a few drinks. It’s silly to ponder on one hand, but as Geraghty points out, it still represents a problem of taxpayer-funded employees being used to lobby for more taxpayer funds. It happens all the time.
The Numbers Landscape for 2012
We have another US Senate race in Pennsylvania. With the incumbent Bob Casey being a fairly mild fellow, it could go either way. However, he should probably rethink his political brand just a bit with these numbers coming out today:
Sen. Bob Casey Jr. has a 44 – 24 percent approval rating, but even after four years in office, 31 percent of the state’s voters are undecided about him.
I guess the fact that nearly 1/3 of the electorate has no opinion on him after 4 years is not a completely bad thing. At the 7 month mark, not even his own staff knew if he was alive.
Five Too Many
New Jersey already limits magazine capacity to fifteen rounds in magazines. Apparently some lawmakers think that having those five extra rounds is just too wild and crazy, and are proposing to reduce the arbitrary and ridiculous limit to ten.
Truth is, New Jersey is in the middle of the pack. Maryland is 20 rounds. New York is 10. New Jersey was in the middle. The even greater truth is these lines are totally arbitrary, and have nothing to do with public safety. This is just another opportunity for our opponents to get more law abiding un owners behind bars where they think we belong.
At Least It’s Not Gun Violence
Because according to our opponents, it’s not really as big a concern if it wasn’t a gun. Check out this story from the City of Brotherly Love, on what happened when a mother tried to take away her 16 year old son’s Playstation, “Kendall went into his sleeping mother’s bedroom, hit her 20 times with a claw hammer and ultimately killed her,” ultimately, they say, because the claw hammer didn’t quite finish the job so then, “he dragged her downstairs and tried to ‘cremate her’ in the kitchen oven. When that failed, he continued, he beat her in the head with a chair leg before dragging her body outside and hiding under debris in an alley behind the house.”
Thank God this juvenile did not have access to a firearm! Someone might have gotten hurt.