Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 1137 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Testimony on Violence in Mexico

This Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing on “Law Enforcement Responses to Mexican Drug Cartels“Â Some of the testimony is frankly, surprising.Â I first heard these clips on Cam & Company on Tuesday, but now present them here for those of you who didn’t catch the show.Â You may have to disable your popup blocker to view some of these video clips.

Question from Durbin to ATF about drug smuggling in Mexico
Durbin claims smuggling into Mexico is in the thousands, and asks ATF for their sense of how big the problem is.Â ATF retorts “I would not say it’s in the thousands, sir.Â I would say it’s probably in the hundreds.”Â Durbin pretty clearly didn’t like that answer.
Lindsey Graham questions the panel about the need for changes in gun laws
Short of is, no one on the panel says we need more gun control.Â The Arizona AG answers that he’d like to see tighter regulation of money transfers, but that’s all anyone agrees on.
Diane Feinstein asks what new gun laws we need.
Senator Feinstein wants to know what laws she can push to make smuggling guns into Mexico even more illegal.Â The laws we have now are “pretty clearly not enough,” according to the Senator.Â The response from the panel is that we don’t even really know the scope of the problem, and have been using current laws effectively.
Senator Feingold asks about smuggling of military hardware across the border.
The gist of it is that the military hardware isn’t coming from the United States, but from other sources.
Senator Sessions says we have plenty of guns on this side of the border, and don’t have Mexico’s levels of violence.Â ATF responds with the fact that most FFLs are law abiding. Sessions says we need to build a fence.

So the people on the ground aren’t calling for changes in our country’s gun laws in order to deal with the Mexican problem, apparently much to the dismay of Senators Feinstein and Durbin.Â We also now know those on the ground don’t believe that military grade weapons are coming from the United States, and certainly not from US gun shows.Â So one wonders whether the media in the United States are going to continue to blame the US for the proliferation of miltiary weapons into Mexico.Â I suspect that the media will ignore this testimony, but let’s hope that Congress won’t.

Interview with Gary Kleck

Appearing in the Winter edition of Florida State University’s “Research in Review” is this interview with criminologist Gary Kleck:

Another reason Kleck applauded [the Heller] decision is that, now, citizens in D.C. will be able to legally arm themselves against criminal attack. Why is this a good thing? Through years of grueling research, Kleck has found strong evidence that crime victims who use guns during a crime are less likely to be injured or killed, and less likely to lose property than crime victims who adopt any other strategy, including non-resistance.

Read the whole interview.Â It’s worth your time.

Everyone Has a Blog These Days

Check out the Barack Obama’s Teleprompter’s Blog.Â Tagline “Reflections from the hard drive of the machine that enables the voice of the Leader of the Free World.”Â Funny stuff.

A Good Pennsylvania Politics Blog

I’m pretty impressed by Capitol Ideas, which is run by The Allentown Morning Call state house reporter, John L. Micek.Â Micek doesn’t pull any punches, and Democrat or Republican is no matter.Â It’s equal opportunity criticism.Â Check out this recent post on an effort by state Democrats to promote phony journalism.Â Good stuff.Â To me, this is what political journalism is supposed to be about; holding those who hold the public trust to account.

Sympathy for the Bradys

It’s times like this I think we ought to be classy and offer our sympathies to groups like The Brady Campaign, who no doubt will take the news today very hard, considering it follows on the heels of a tragic mass shooting involving politically incorrect semi-automatic rifles.Â If sixty-five Democrats are willing to preemptively stand up and say “no thanks” to any new ban on semi-automatic firearms after that, The Brady Campaign can pretty much forget about the assault weapons issue at the federal level.Â At least for the foreseeable future.Â The tides could certainly turn, but 65 Dem votes is a lot ot make up for, and Eric Holder’s statements to the contrary, Obama certainly hasn’t indicated he’s willing to risk any political capital trying to get one passed.Â Â So I will offer the Brady’s the same advice I offered after the Heller decision was handed down in June.Â That’s right, nothing, and I mean nothing, beats Tequila for helping you forget that the most Democratic Congress in a generation won’t even hold a hearing on your issue.

When drowing your sorrows, don’t bother with the good stuff.Â Go right to the bottom shelf.Â There’s no shame in it. I’ve followed my own advice on more occasions than I care to admit.Â It works!Â You might not feel that great the next morning, but hey, you won’t have much time to think about legislation, or the lack thereof, when your head feels like it’s going to explode.Â So crack open a bottle, it’ll do more to help the Mexican economy and fight off drug cartels than anything you guys ever proposed will.

Thanks to Pennsylvania Dems

I wish to extend my thanks to the following members of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Congressional Delegation who signed on to the Letter to Eric Holder:

Tim Holden (PA-17) Dauphin, Lebanon, Schuylkill, Parts of Berks and Perry.
Paul Kanjorski (PA-11) Carbon, Columbia, Monroe, Lackawanna, Luzerne
John Murtha (PA-12) Greene County, Parts of nearly half the southwest.
Christopher Carney (PA-10) Wayne, Pike, Susquehanna, Bradford, Sullivan, etc
Jason Altmire (PA-04) Allegheny County, Beaver, Butler, parts of others.

Notable Democrats from Pennsylvania who did not sign the letter:

Robert Brady (PA-01) (Philadelphia)
Chaka Fattah (PA-02) (Philadelphia)
Joe Sestak (PA-07) Delaware Co. Chester County (Part)
Patrick Murphy (PA-08) Bucks County, Philadelphia (Part)
Allyson Schwartz (PA-13) Montgomery County, Philadelphia (Part)
Kathleen A. Dahlkemper (PA-3) Erie County, Parts of Surrounding counties
Michael F Doyle (PA-14) Allegeny County (Pittsburgh)

The former deserve our thanks, and support.Â The latter need to be targeted in 2010, and should get letters asking them why they didn’t sign the letter.Â I have Pat Murphy covered.Â Bitter’s got Schwartz.Â We have a few other ambitious EVCs out there looking at defeating some other ones.Â Now all we need is an army of volunteers.

Congressional Dems Oppose AWB in Letter

NRA is reporting more good news today.Â Sixty five Democratic members of the House of Representatives have sent a letter to Eric Holder opposing the reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban.Â Just to run the math for you, there are 178 Republicans in the House of Representatives under the 111th Congress.Â It takes 218 votes to pass a bill.Â That means with 65 Democrats on record as opposing a renewal of the ban, we can afford to lose 28 deadbeat Republicans on the vote, and Pelosi still would not have a majority to pass a renewal.

This gives us a pretty good indication that getting a ban passed in the 111th Congress is going to be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible for Obama to pull off.Â Great work on the part of Congressman Mike Ross, and great work on behalf of NRA for getting this together.Â It would be awfully nice for our main complaint about the 111th Congress to be that they didn’t do enough for us, rather than what they did to us.

But that’s not to say with this pass snowed out, they won’t try to find another way over the mountain.Â We still have plenty of enemies in Congress and in the White House.

UPDATE: Letter here

Quote of the Day

From Michael Bane:

I see that Republican weasel Michael Steele will speak at the NRA Convention…this is the same Michael Steele who spoke out in favor of a new AWB. The first words out of his mouth better be, “Members of the NRA…I am profoundly sorry for my ill-advised comments on laws banning the most popular firearms in America…accordingly, I hereby commit the Republican Party to unconditional support for the Second Amendment and gun rights in America…”

As many of you know, I parted ways with a lot of gun people over Steele as GOP Chairman, but mostly because his past positions on guns wasn’t really all that germane to his position as party chair.Â That’s a distinctly different thing than Steele being invited to speak at the NRA Annual Meeting.Â I agree with Michael that he better be coming to mend fences, otherwise I’m going to question the sanity of those who thought he’d be a good speaker for such an important NRA function.

As Michael pointed out Monday, we’re one of the only tools left in the GOP’s tool belt that’s still sharp and useful.Â We deserve better than we’ve gotten out of Republicans in the past.

I Guess I’m Not the Only One …

… Who has this dream:

I still have this dream, and I’ve been out of college now for 12 years. My God, has it really been that long?Â I tend to wonder whether or not it’s related to anxiety over forgetting everything you ever learned.Â I don’t think I can even remember how to do integration by parts.Â I definitely couldn’t design an amplifier or other such electrical circuit without spending days hitting the books and relearning everything.Â Hell, I’m not sure I even remember the math for complex electronic circuits.Â I barely remember the physics of a transistor.

And I’m an electrical engineer.Â This is what I get for working in IT for 10 years.Â I guess it’s true what they say, your major is the subject you will learn and forget the most about.

Statement from NRA About DoD Brass Issue

From Chris Cox:

DLA also put to rest various theories and rumors that were circulated on the internet, concerning the reason for the suspension. As DLA explained to Senators Baucus and Tester, and to NRA-ILA, DoD officials responsible for the demilitarization of military property temporarily halted the release of the cartridge cases last week, pending review of a policy change issued last year by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which, in the interest of national security, halted the sale of items within a broad category of government property including, but not limited to, surplus small arms cartridge cases.

To make cartridge cases eligible for sale once again, DoD demilitarization officials verified that the cases could be appropriately placed in a category of government property allowing for their release for use within the United States, and then executed the recategorization. Whereas during the brief suspension, fired cartridge cases would have been releaseable only if the purchaser crushed or smelted them, now the cases may be sold as before, intact and reloadable.

DoD also assured NRA-ILA that companies previously authorized to purchase cartridge cases under Trade Security Controls need no further vetting at this time, and are eligible to resume purchasing cases under the policy adopted yesterday.

That tends to play against this being any nefarious conspiracy by the Obama Administration, which is a shame, because I like a good nefarious conspiracy.Â Now if we can just get the DoD to start surplussing live ammunition to civilian shooters, we’ll really be in business.