Looks like Tom McClintock managed to pull it out in California’s 4th. McClintock is a great friend of the Second Amendment, and of conservative causes in general. Unlike a lot of other politicians, he walks the walk. So this is also a nice silver lining to an otherwise ominous dark cloud.
Category: Politics
Stay Classy Ed
I can’t believe we elected this guy … twice.
One-Gun-A-Month in New Jersey
It’s up for a committe vote in New Jersey on December 8th. Scott Bach has this to say:
Unfortunately, a bill pending in the State Senate and up for committee vote 12/8 (S1774) is a bad dose of old medicine. It’s a proposal to ration the Constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to own handguns beyond the existing regulatory thicket, which already slows exercise of those rights to a trickle. It ignores violent behavior and known sources of illegal trafficking, instead restricting only persons investigated and pre-certified as acceptable to own firearms. Even mainstream media recognize the ineffectiveness of this approach.
He goes on to describe how utterly worthless this law is going to be in light of New Jersey’s requirements to even purchase a firearm. Bryan Miller is pushing for this law just because he can. No sane person believes that criminals are following New Jersey’s draconian gun regulations to get guns, rather than buying them on the street.
What the Chambliss Victory Means
Saxby Chambliss received 49.8% of the vote on November 4th. His Democratic rival, Jim Martin, received 46.8%, with 3.4% going to the Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley. Last night was the runoff election between Chambliss and Martin, which both sides dumped a lot of resources into, including NRA into helping Chambliss retain his Senate seat. Chambliss defeated Martin 57.4% to 42.6%. Between November and now, he increased his lead by 13 percentage points to sail to re-election in a landslide victory.
Aside from preserving a filibuster for Republicans, it will also serve as a warning to Democrats that their victory may be a lot more pyrrhic than they might like to imagine. Without Obama’s coattails to ride in the midterm election, Democrats might find themselves in serious trouble in 2010 if they overreach. The Republican Party is down, but not out, and Pelosi, Reid and Obama govern to the left at their peril. A third effect this will likely have is to decrease the likelihood the Democrats will up the ante in the Coleman/Franken election, since with Chambliss’ victory, it doesn’t matter as much now.
This is a good victory. A shot across the bow of the Democrats from the people of Georgia. We are down, but not out. On to 2010.
Now We’re Heroin Addicts
Remember Tonya Paine? Well, now we suburbanite gun owners need to be reigned in because we can’t stop ourselves from coming into their fair city to trade our guns for smack:
“We have a lot of suburbanites that come into this city carrying their arms and they trade them off for these stamp bags of heroin,” said Payne. “Let’s call a spade a spade. People don’t want to hear the truth.”
I’ve never even seen a stamp bag of herion, let alone ever traded a gun for one. I mean, accusing people of not wanting to hear the truth? Pot, meet kettle.
Congress Gets it Wrong
No really, it’s not a political debate. They just got it wrong. The Capitol Visitor Center opened today, and Heritage Foundation’s Matt Spalding highlights how Congress got it wrong.
In the Visitor Center’s Exhibition Hall, the theme is “E Pluribus Unum — Out of Many, One.†Initially, words etched in marble called that stirring phrase the nation’s motto. A bad plaster job now covers the reference, someone having noticed that, well, “E Pluribus Unum†is not our national motto. “In God We Trust†is.
You’d think for a project that ran more than double the projected costs and is nearly 5 years overdue, they would take some time to get it right. But what’s more troubling is the blatant left-wing bias that permeates the exhibit. The Washington Times reports on the butchering of the Constitution:
He singled out the display on “Knowledge,” which he said selectively cuts the powers granted to Congress by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, reducing the full explanation “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries” to an expansive grant: “The Congress shall have Power To … promote … useful Arts.”
The display says that grant of powers is the basis under which Congress has founded the Library of Congress, “promoted public education, supported the arts and sciences, and funded extensive research.”
Essentially anything in the Constitution that discusses a limit on power got chopped. Lovely.
The Times reports that members of both parties reviewed the education materials and approved them. In fact, the Architect of the Capitol, the office charged with creating the Visitor Center, noted in a letter that the GOP very specifically signed off on this interpretation:
In June of 2005, the Commission, under the Co-Chairmanship of Speaker Dennis Hastert and President Pro Tempore Senator Ted Stevens, unanimously approved the CVC exhibit plan and script of the thirteen minute orientation film. Subsequently, in December of 2006, the Commission unanimously approved the final version of the orientation film under the continuing leadership of Co-Chairmen Hastert and Stevens.
And because this is a gun blog, there’s no mention of the Second Amendment of any text of it anywhere in the educational materials or the script of the movie. Unfortunately, combined with the hatchet job done on the rest of the Constitution, these are gaps that not even a bad plaster job can fill.
UPDATE: Oh yeah, and Harry Reid is just happy he doesn’t have to smell the common people anymore.
And now with video:
What Philadelphia is Up To in Regards to LTCs
A few years ago the state increased the license fee for a license to carry by six dollars. Philadelphia kept charging the old rate of 19 dollars. Now the city is sending out the following letter:
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Demanding that people pay the back fees owed, or they will be turned over to collections and have their LTC revoked. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, there’s no provision in state law that allows a License to Carry to be revoked because the issuing agency charged the incorrect fee.
The PAFOA thread about this topic can be found here.
It is an Uncanny Resemblance
Waxman as Bat Boy? I can believe it.
A Peek At the Playbook?
Ilya Somin might have given us a hint at what Obama’s Administration might be centrally planning:
Interest group pressure has already played a key role in the congressional vote on the finance industry bailout, and it is likely to be equally important in structuring the massive future bailouts to come. Once Obama takes office, we are likely to see some $500 billion to 1 trillion in additional bailout spending – and that may be just for starters. Interest groups will play a major role in allocating this money, and they are already ramping up their lobbying efforts.
On the surface this sounds pretty bad, and it is. It’s well established that central planning of an economy is folly, and these fools are arrogant enough to think they can do it. But I am actually somewhat relieved if this is the kind of crap that Obama will be driving through Congress. It won’t engender a large amount of public support, and will be relatively easy for successive Administrations and Congresses to undo. The real fear (well, other than new gun control, for our purposes) is that Obama will pass a massive new entitlement program, such as national health care. Entitlements are nearly impossible to get rid of once they are in place, so if Obama and Emanuel wants to waste taxpayer money by sending tax dollars to inefficient industries, rather than passing new entitlement, all the power to him. It will make rallying public opposition that much easier.
Is It Reality?
Linoge looks a pretty whaky example of an Obama supporter and concludes that the administration is certainly heading down the path for re-education of all us gun clinging cousin humpers. I can’t say that I really find it persuasive in terms of indicating where The Administration is headed, when you have folks on our side threatening journalists and anti-gun supporters with consequence on the day of reckoning that is certainly fast approaching.
There are extremes on all sides. Part of the reason our system works is that it tends to dull extremes. The ship of state does not turn on a dime. The captain can throw the rudder hard to port as much as he wants, but unless successive administrations do it, it’s hard to execute a sharp turn in either direction. Because our system is slow to change, it takes a serious consensus among the people in order to keep it moving in any one direction.
Given that there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of actual change going on, I think it’s safe to say that the re-education camps, at best, will be a second term project. I’m not saying we’re not going to get some really bad policies and legislation out of this Congress and this Administration, but we’ve seen all this before. My problem with hyperbole, and I do think it’s hyperbole, is that while it might be emotionally satisfying, it’s not entirely useful for actually rebuilding the coalitions we’re going to need to defeat this. Fear is a powerful motivator, but I think what this administration has actually been proposing is plenty scary enough to get people motivated.