Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 1105 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Who’s Better on Civil Rights Again?

Jacob Sullum talks about the great expansion of federal hate crime that Congress is considering.Â This bill makes federal crimes out of most crimes, enabling double jeopardy.Â Â The problem is that, under our federal system, the federal and state governments are considered separate sovereigns, and so while double jeopardy is generally prohibited, because each sovereign is considered to have its own, separate interest in prosecuting crime.

It’s a nice idea in theory, and it might even work out if Congress were truly limited to its enumerated powers.Â But Congress’ power over interstate commerce are now without limit.Â With this new hate crime law, a person could easily be acquitted by a jury in state court, and then brought to trial in federal court for the same act, under this “hate crime” law.Â The nexus to interstate commerce?Â Well, he used a gun see.Â And that gun once traveled over state lines.Â Lopez was supposed to deal with this problem, but who knows if that’s even still valid precedent, even if it might technically still be.

Does Alaska Even Have Anti-Gun Legislation?

I asked Bitter if Alaska even has anyone who would dare introduce gun control bills after reading this story this morning.

Hundreds Turn Out to Protect Gun Rights

It was standing room only at the Soldotna Sports Center last night as many from the Kenai Peninsula attended the rally of the Second Amendment Task Force of the Kenai Peninsula. Even the presenters discussed the turnout, including Bob Bird of Nikiski. He was gratified with the turnout. He explained to the audience that the rally was not called as part of the National Rifle Association, or as part of the Gun Owners of America. Those speaking at the rally wanted to relay the message that there is a reason Americans should be concerned that the freedom to keep and bear arms is being threatened.

It’s great to hear about pro-active gun owners.

Virginia Democrats Realign on Guns

VSSA has a great post on yesterday’s debate between Democratic gubernatorial candidates. You’ll note that two of the candidates are trying to twist their way into different positions in an attempt to appease presumably anti-gun party primary voters primarily in the DC suburbs and also a more pro-gun general populace across the entire state. Sometimes it’s best to just grab a bowl of popcorn and watch the entertainment.

Let’s Hope They Are Right

The Beaver County Times published a short editorial about the gun rights rally in Harrisburg last week.

Hundreds of pro-gun advocates, led by the president of the National Rifle Association, showed up to remind state lawmakers who is pulling the strings and whose strings are being pulled.

It was an impressive combination of clout and cowering. (Itâ€™s not hard to figure out which adjective applied to gun backers and which applied to lawmakers.)

I hope they are correct in their prediction that gun control at the state level isn’t likely to move.

Biden Eases Burden on Secret Service

Our Vice President reminds us on this 101st day of the Obama Administration that we could have, in fact, made a worse electoral decision. Instead of keeping on his talking points about Obama’s “enchanting moments,” he used his time on the Today show this morning to unleash his inner survivalist.

Joe Biden tells Americans that they should no longer take public transportation, fly on commercial airlines, or sit in “enclosed” classrooms. I’m sure that will really help the struggling economy. Politico tells us that the Administration has promised a forthcoming “clarifying statement.” According to one account on Twitter, even the show’s hosts were wondering why Biden just asked America to stop using public transportation.

Early Endorsement Fisking

It looks like Gun Owners of America is throwing its weight behind Pat Toomey, even though we’re still an entire year out from the Republican Primary, and as far as I can tell, the primary ballot isn’t even really known yet:

First, Senator Arlen Specter provided the instrumental Republican
support to get anti-gun Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed by the
Senate.

So did GOA A- rated Shelby.Â So did GOA A rated Chambliss, and GOA A rated Isakson.Â I could go on.Â Point being, 75 Senators voted, including a lot of Senators highly rated by GOA voted to confirm Eric Holder.Â I anxiously await GOA’s endorsement of their primary opponents this early on.

Then, he singlehandedly pushed through the massive economic bailout, the so-called stimulus bill, which contained several provisions of concern to gun owners.

This has nothing to do with guns.Â Most of GOA’s arguments centered around the health care provisions of the bill, combined with their opposition HR2640, which has been documented extensively on here as total bunk.

Every time Attorney General Eric Holder opens his mouth and talks about reinstating the Clinton gun ban, gun owners know they have Arlen Specter to thank.

Along with several other highly rated GOA Senators.

Without Specter, there would be no $1 TRILLION bailout.

Really, by the time debt services and other frills of the “socialism
bill” are accounted for, the cost will be over $3 TRILLION!

I thought you were Gun Owners of America, not the National Taxpayers Union, or Americans for Prosperity.Â What about the highly rated GOA representative Jason Altmire, who has an A-.Â What about highly rated Congressman Dan Boren, also with an A-.Â They voted for the Porkulus too.Â Shall I go to the Senate?Â You have to decide what your issue is.Â If it’s conservatism, you should change your name and rate many of these representatives lower than they are rated.

Please help Gun Owners of America make this Specter’s last term in office by supporting Pat Toomey for Senate at: http://www.toomeyforsenate.com/contribute

What if A- rated Gerlach decides to run in the primary, because he’s apparently thinking about it.Â Do you want to endorse an A vs. A- candidate?Â What if Gerlach wins?

Rep. Toomey was “A” rated by Gun Owners of America during his time in Congress.

So were many others who voted the same way as Arlen Specter has.Â Why single him out?Â I have an answer.Â GOA knows NRA is likely to stand by Specter as long as Specter keeps voting the right way on guns.Â They know that will upset a lot of the faithful who hate Specter on issues that are not related to guns.Â They are hoping to capitalize on that.Â I can’t think of what else it could be.

Many GOA supporters were quick to lambast Bob Barr on his vote for the Lautenberg Amendment, probably won’t give Arlen Specter much credit for voting against it.Â But who I am I to get in the way of a joke of a pro-gun organization trying to promote themselves.

Mental Conditioning for Self-Defense

Brillianter has another in his series on self-defense.

Test by Instalanche

Finally got the server tested out under a full blown Instalanche, which beats any load testing you can do.Â Â I’ve received a few links from Instapundit since I got the new server, but never at a peak traffic moment.Â This morning I noticed my server was running a bit slow, and sure enough, there was a lot of traffic coming in from Glenn.Â Â My current settings were a bit too generous, and caused a lot of swapping, which is lethal to LAMP server under high load.Â Â Scaling my max clients back a bit solved that problem, and we seem to be holding up to the worst that Prof. Reynolds can throw at me.Â Â Not bad for a 300 dollar server!

Oink! Oink! Bang! Bang!

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution says that gun violence is more serious than the swine flu.Â Let’s see here, gun violence kills about 14,000 people a year.Â During a typical flu season, it’s estimated that 30,000 – 50,000 people die from flu.Â Models of a pandemic flu strain show deaths in the range of anywhere from 209,000 to 1.9 million.

That’s a considerably larger potential problem space than gun violence.Â If the Atlanta-Journal and Constitution wants to shill for the Brady Campaign, they can at least do a little research.

Celebrating the First 100 Days

For your amusement, Jim Geraghty has posted a list of at least 16 promises from Obama that have expired within his first 100 days. (For you non-mathy readers, that’s an average of one broken promise every 6 days.)

Jim notes that once his readers find the post, he will no doubt receive many more submissions. I’ll be curious to see if he can get 100 broken promises for each of the 100 days in office.