A school in Virginia has reversed its zero tolerance policy after parents got up in arms when two 7 year olds were suspended for pretending pencils were guns. Local politicians tend to want to avoid controversy like the plague. One might think it might takes hordes of parents to make a difference, but really one or two determine sets of parents can often be more trouble than local elected officials want to deal with.
Category: Politics
Court Tosses Out Colorado Magazine Restrictions
On Sending Weapons to Syria
I’m a little puzzled why we’re going to give small arms to Al Qaeda in Syria without requiring universal background checks on each one of those so-called “rebels.” I mean, it’s for all those little Middle Eastern children, isn’t it? And is there gong to be a registry of the serial numbers of all those small arms so we can trace them back to the individual terrorist we gave the guns to when those guns are used against Americans — as they inevitably will be? And I’m concerned that those containers full of small arms being shipped Al Qaeda Syria may all feature magazines with a magazine capacity greater than 10 rounds! And real assault weapons!
And here we’ve been told, again and again, by Obama’s supporters that small arms are useless in the face of a government armed with airplanes, tanks, artillery, and weapons of mass destruction. This is pretty good evidence that none of these people actually believe their own bull.
Your Friday Laugh
Even the most jaded should be able to find a little humor in this take on the massive NSA data collection:
Spoofs like this are great ways to spread larger ideas.
Administration’s Gun Control Priorities vs Senate Democratic Priorities
This is a great day to call your Congressional Representative and let them know you stand for gun rights, and you want to make sure they remember to do the same. Today, the Obama Administration is pushing gun control again. I mentioned the rallies previously, but people on his mailing list are also getting an email pitch from the daughter of the Sandy Hook principal urging phone calls to Congress.
In the weeks and months after that horrible day, lawmakers from across the country told us, the families of the victims, that they’d take action to make our communities safer. What we found out is that, for some of our members of Congress, those were empty promises.
It’s very sad about those empty promises. It’s not quite as sad as the blatant partisan nature of this call to action that is designed to try and demonize the GOP-controlled House when it’s the Democratic Senate that acknowledges they should be the first to pass a bill with any chance of moving.
What I find most interesting about this partisan pitch by a gun control activist is that it shows how unserious they really are about the actual cause as opposed to the politics of promoting their party. All of my local lawmakers know that I’m with them because of gun rights. I’ll be against them, should it be warranted, because of gun rights. My support focuses on actually getting things accomplished or keeping threats at bay rather than simply using the issue to hurt a political party. That does not appear to be the case for many of the new advocates for gun control. If this woman wanted action, she would insist that her email be targeted to Senators, not Republican House members.
Meanwhile, Charles Cooke from National Review highlights the rather shocking (to none outside of the White House) news that contrary to what the Obama Administration is trying to demand of Democrats, they have no serious desire to keep harping on gun control.
Do you mean to say that a couple of months after the bill went down, there isn’t, magically, a groundswell of support for its revival? That the statistics showing that Americans really don’t care about this and don’t want the Senate to spend its time on it haven’t changed? That the 2014 elections are still going to be held in 2014, and that conservative Democrats still fear the voters on this issue?
When you combine the efforts of Bloomberg with the Obama team, I have to wonder if they have decided it is time to purge the Democratic Party of all leaders who find gun ownership remotely acceptable. While Obama isn’t being quite as hostile to pro-gun Dems as Bloomberg, he’s still trying to brand the GOP as the party to save gun rights with his attacks on the House.
Priorities in Washington, DC
If you’re a Washington, DC resident, you can qualify for a license to purchase marijuana, a substance banned under federal laws, for $100.
Meanwhile, a license to possess a handgun in your home, a constitutionally protected right, will set you back nearly double that amount.
Priorities.
The LTC Process in Philly
Despite the state making an effort to standardize the LTC application process, Philly is still wants to do things their own way.
The application itself is 4 (four) pages if you print some of them front/back. Doesnt that go against what is outline in:
18 Pa.C.S. § 6109: Licenses (c) Form of application and content.–The application for a license to carry a firearm shall be uniform throughout this Commonwealth and shall be on a form prescribed by the Pennsylvania State Police. The form may contain provisions, not exceeding one page, to assure compliance with this section. Issuing authorities shall use only the application form prescribed by the Pennsylvania State Police.
Or am I just dense?
You’re not dense, no. But the law doesn’t honestly mean anything to these people, and it’s always just been cheaper to go get yourself a Florida license that to try to challenge the system. Kathy Kane might have just changed that equation, however. In every jurisdiction except for “cities of the first class,” which Philadelphia (and only Philadelphia) is under PA law, the issuing authority is the sheriff. For Philadelphia it is the Chief of Police. One bill I’ve seen would allow applications to be made to neighboring jurisdictions. This would be a useful first step, on the way to fixing this issue by not requiring permits, and may be useful for people who live in sprawling counties where the neighboring sheriff may actually be closer.
Colorado Senate Recall Issues
I’ll give him credit, it appears as though Colorado’s Senate President is going to cling to power with everything he’s got after his gun control games. According to “A Whole Lot of People for John Morse,” his recall campaign team, they plan to challenge to every single signature filed.
…Morse backers note that they plan to contest every signature submitted if enough are verified to move forward with a recall election.
It doesn’t seem to matter how obviously qualified a signature is, their comments to the press indicate they will still challenge the validity in an attempt to disqualify recall petition signers. Now, I generally don’t have too much of a problem with challenging some signatures. That’s because a certain number of signatures on any legal petition will be invalid. However, if they truly plan to contest every single name, that’s purposely just wasting the time and resources of the courts and agencies overseeing elections in an effort to truly disenfranchise valid and legal voters.
To his credit, not even the Democratic Party leader appears to be willing to go that far. He simply says that they plan to “scrutinize and comb through all of the purported signatures.” Then he follows that up with complaints about the cost of having elections and claims that they are absolutely not in any way talking about asking the Senator to resign in order to keep the seat in Democratic hands–even though Democratic advisors have been very vocal about the possibility of resignation and how it would be less embarrassing for Morse than losing a recall.
Big Push for Hunting in Pennsylvania
It looks like Pennsylvania’s ban on Sunday hunting is going to be challenged in the courts since the legislature refuses to act. The suit will apparently be brought on rather interesting grounds:
Specifically, the letter says “the prohibition on hunting certain species on Sunday” is “unconstitutional under the First, Second and 14th amendments to the United States Constitution.”
And on a somewhat related note, some new partnership to highlight the economic benefits of hunting is launching at the State Capitol tomorrow.
I actually think that the economic benefits of hunting are under utilized as talking points in the Second Amendment community. We look at gun sales data and think nothing of using those data points, but hunting is one of our community’s sports that requires far more than just a gun and ammunition. The equipment and trips drive quite a bit of money into government coffers. That should be highlight just like other economic indicators in the sports.
In fact, I think it would be handy if more groups that sanction, run, or really do any kind of formal organizing of shooting sports did some economic impact studies. Hell, even local gun clubs could just do some not-so-scientific polling of their members to get an idea of what kind of economic impact they have on the local communities, and that can be used when talking to lawmakers about why it’s good to avoid restrictions on our rights.
Binders Full of Women vs. Underage Prostitutes
I’m a woman, and I’m having some trouble following the media narrative on women’s issues in politics. If I’m following it correctly, I believe these are the highlights:
1) I am under attack in a war that has been declared on my gender.
2) Those attacks are only from men who may want to tell me about how to use my reproductive organs to make babies, but not by the men who want to restrict my right to defend myself from a rapist who may want to make use of said reproductive organs without my consent.
3) I attended an all-woman college that was founded on the principles that women, even those of very modest means, could contribute more to society than just pleasing men and required high academic standards for women of the day. Yet, in the last election, the message to women on campus was that the only way to define a woman’s role in elections is through the interest of her reproductive organs (that she should not be able to protect from assault using a personal firearm).
4) The candidate for president who made a remark about seeking out qualified women for administration jobs was the leader of the opposition in this war on women, but the President who appointed an ambassador who may have been screwing underage girls is absolutely on the side of women. Oh, and since the Department of State was under the leadership of a woman (who also attended a single sex institution), it’s okay that investigators looking into these allegations were ordered to stop their work.
I’m just making sure that I’m able to keep up. Maybe it’s because I’m in a relationship with a neanderthal gun owner that I’m a little slow to keep up on these complex matters. According to the media, this should all be clear to me (and my reproductive organs that define who I am). Regardless of what they tell me, I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around this so-called war.