I’m going to guess the Director of Industry Operations at the Houston ATF field office won’t be advancing much in his career. This would be ATF compliance division rather than enforcement, I guess depending on which side of the plywood you’re on.
Category: Politics
NJ Assembly Passes Not Quite Pro-Gun Bills
Cemetery has the news. One is a the NICS act which brings New Jersey into compliance with federal law. This actually changes New Jersey’s law in this matter very little. The other is the exceptions for their gun rationing law. I should note this bill differs from the Senate bill, which makes more exceptions. The Assembly bill only covers transfers between dealers, distributors and manufacturers. This is likely why it passed unanimously.
Obviously this isn’t a bad development, but if the politicians in New Jersey think this will make up for screwing over gun owners, yet again, with gun rationing, they are kidding themselves. This just keeps their original bill from being a de-facto ban, which it was.
DUI in Lancaster County
The Gun
It looks like the Philadelphia media is rather fascinated that criminals straw purchase guns in other states and traffic them back to Philadelphia. In this case, the feds are prosecuting because a police officer was killed with the gun. Straw purchasing is a state crime too. How often do run of the mill, non-cop-killing criminals end up getting let go because the authorities ordinarily don’t care?
Cutting Costs
I’m not sure how we’re supposed to believe the government can cut health care costs when they can’t even make money off sex and gambling. The closest we ever came in Pennsylvania to abolishing the state liquor and wine monopoly was during a period that they were losing money. It takes effort to be able to lose money selling vices, but the government is awful good at losing money, it seems.
Holiday Bustling in DC
Forget a rush to buy Christmas gifts, most folks I know in DC just started a bustling holiday season today because of Obama’s latest stunt. As summed up by a friend this morning:
Looks like Obama has decided to make today his own day that will live in infamy with the most destructive attack on the US economy ever, scheduled for launching at 1:15 pm.
Between this, health care, and all the other crap he’s pushing, can anyone on the left try to make the argument that this administration isn’t actively trying to make the economy worse?
Of course, I also view this as a warning for gun owners. How so? Consider this statement from the WSJ:
An “endangerment” finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions — even if Congress doesn’t pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.
This administration has realized that it doesn’t need Congress to act on every major issue. He’ll need to go to Congress on some things, but not for many damaging policies. It can be the same way with the gun issue. He won’t have to worry about moderate Democrats casting votes. In fact, he won’t have to answer to Congress at all. Congress authorized these agencies to enact regulations long ago, so the Obama team is simply taking advantage of it.
So far, the Obama team has been hesitant to pick a fight on guns. However, if he decides to do it, know that those working for him have realized that they can use their regulatory authority to come after us without the messy fight & political accountability in Congress.
Gaming Book Sales
Since it has been a topic of conversation recently, I look forward to Dennis Henigan’s swift condemnation of Obama’s campaign manager who is coordinating online to alter books sales data.
David Plouffe, in a 2008-throwback, message-heavy, direct-to-camera video, rallies Obama supporters to “see if we can use some of our old organizing techniques and spread the word” — to sell more copies of Plouffe’s book than Sarah Palin’s.
If you’d like to see the full appeal, here’s the video:
Now, I don’t condemn so-called book bomb tactic. It’s a strategy to hype buzz for one day, or, if you’re lucky, a series of days. It’s not terribly far off from the tactic the Brady Campaign has used to game book reviews with 5 stars on Amazon. It’s a temporary shift, and it doesn’t really mean much in the long run.
That said, if you want to play David Plouffe’s game of trying to drown out the voices who don’t agree with Obama, might I suggest that tomorrow is a wonderful to day buy Going Rogue? Two can play at this game…
Small Dent in New Jersey Licensing Law?
I’ve heard rumors of a new NJ FID system coming to NJ, which would join the digital era, and somehow, once this license is obtained, there will be no need to visit the local Police for permits. Everything would happen via NICS and point of purchase. Which makes me think that handgun purchases, and One Gun a Month laws, will be permitted, and enforces at point of sale. But, like I said, all I’ve heard was rumors.
If that’s true, it would be great. But the fact that they are even talking about, as cemetery mentions, making a special class of license for competitive shooters and collectors is encouraging. Keep pushing this, and don’t push the special license, just push getting rid of the purchase permits altogether. It’s New Jersey, so get anything you can, but if they are talking about it, it might be possible to just get rid of the purchase permits altogether. That would be real progress back to reasonable gun laws.
Jury Duty
Looks like my number came up, and I will be serving in the beginning of February. This is one of those unfortunate things, but I do consider it a civic duty, so I will go without complaint. They will never pick me anyway, at least not for any lengthy or infamous trial, due to the fact that any jury consultant worth his salt will quickly peg me as someone who will hold the state to its burden on proof, and I don’t think any prosecuting attorney will stand for it. They’d probably also be rather appalled that I believe in jury nullification under some, limited circumstances, but that’s not something I think I’ve discussed under my real name.
Pennsylvania Welcomes Obama
So Obama is nearby today, hitting up the Lehigh Valley to tell people what they already know: the economy sucks and we wish companies were hiring again. But being the kind folks they are, Pennsylvanians had a few welcome notes for the President. From @Capitol_Ideas:
Sign outside Burger King on Rte. 309: “Welcome Pres. Obama. Stimulate us. Try a Whopper.”
I would give Obama big props if the Presidential limo actually pulled through and ordered some Whoppers.
Then you have a soco mixing messages, but in a good way. I probably would not agree on policy with this person, but it’s very good to relate your pet issue to the big issues of the time:
Another Sign: “Abortion Kills Future American Taxpayers.”