To the Lincoln Nebraska Police Department Pistol Team. They “received more than 40 awards and took first place in several categories” at the NRA’s National Police Shooting Championship in New Mexico. Well done.
Philadelphia Tries Again
They introduce two new gun bills to City Council. One that closes a non-existent loophole in Pennsylvania Law:
Under legislation proposed by Council members Donna Reed Miller and Darrell L. Clarke, anyone reselling a gun would have have to run the sale through a licensed dealer, who would run a background check on the buyer.
A similar state law already exists, but critics say it is too narrow and has no effect on individuals selling guns to other individuals.
“We’re looking at all the avenues and cracks in the system,” Miller said.
There are no private sales of handguns in Pennsylvania. That is apparently a fact lost on City Council. I don’t know what loophole they think exists, but this is a non-starter and pretty clearly a violation of state preemption.
The other bill introduced yesterday would raise the city penalty for carrying a gun illegally from $300 to $1,900 and would allow police to confiscate a car driven by someone illegally carrying a gun – regardless of ownership of the car.
Careful you don’t leave a pistol in the glove box of your car if you lend it to someone. I oppose this law, because I think Civil Asset Forfeiture is wrong on principle. Doesn’t matter if a gun is involved or not. This is also a violation of state preemption.
Does the rule of law mean nothing to Philadelphia City Council? Sadly I think I know the answer already. How can they expect their residents to respect the law when they themselves refuse to?
Guess Who Doesn’t Win Brady Endorsement?
Congressman Patrick Murphy is not among the Brady list of endorsed candidates. Joe Sestak got one. So did Allyson Schwartz. Of course, the NRA rated him a D-. He’ll win no friends on the gun issue this election. This is what we call a poor political calculation.
There’s a lot to be gained by being pro-gun. A lot of the Tom Manion signs and bumper stickers around Bucks County were put up by my volunteers, or were given out by my volunteers. I have people phone banking for NRA endorsed candidates. We’ve been stuffing envelopes for Tom Manion and John McCain. This could all be working for you Pat, but now it’s working against you. Where are your throngs of volunteers, coordinators, and bloggers from CeaseFire PA or the Brady Campaign? Even if you hadn’t pissed them off too, there’s none to be had, because they aren’t a real grass roots movement.
We don’t ask for much Congressman Murphy, just that you vote consistently with the Second Amendment. But you don’t, so our support goes to your opponent. I am an independent, and a single issue activist. I have no special love for the Republican Party. But I definitely don’t have any love for you when you sign on to ban the guns I shoot with competitively.
“We’re a Gun Rights Organization”
That’s what Ray Schoenke is telling people in Minnesota:
“We’re a gun rights organization and we are stating Obama’s not going to take away your guns,†Ray Schoenke, who is founder and president of the AHSA, said in an interview Thursday night.
It’s a growing phenomena. Just look at the crowds this guy draws. Let me tell you, the Second Amendment is in trouble if we don’t counter the AHSA hordes! I wonder if he told them about Barack’s endorsement by the Brady Campaign.
Forks of the Delaware
We’ll be working one last gun show this weekend up in Allentown. I had thought that the show two weeks ago would be our last before the election, but this looked like a big show, and our NRA endorsed candidates need the most help in the Northeastern part of Pennsylvania, which this show should draw from. We have a whopping 500 McCain/Palin signs to distribute. That’s a lot of lawns that will be helping drive the perception that McCain support is growing in Pennsylvania.
The show is run by the Forks of the Delaware Historical Arms Society. If anyone wants to come out to this one, it’ll be at the Allentown Fairgrounds. Directions are here. Our table should be right at the entrance.
Murtha’s Comment
Jack Murtha says Western Pennsylvanians are racist. Wyatt lays out exactly where Lynn Swann’s locus of support was. I would note, that Jack Murtha’s district is the 12th, which is mostly in the southwest corner of the state, which went Rendell. Maybe people in your district are racist, Jack, but Western Pennsylvania pretty overhwelmingly went for Swann.
Obama Lied About ACORN Assocation
Like I said, the guy can lie convincingly and make it sound wonderful. Apparently his bit on ACORN was another whopper.
UPDATE: More from Another Gun Blog.
Open Carry Advice
Tam says you need to get a better holster. I particularly love this part:
Nothin’ but Fobus and those godawful clip-on nylon sausage sacks with the spare magazine pouch sewn on the front of the holster.
The reason I think that’s funny is because Bitter has one of those. When I first saw it, I cringed. I’ve offered to buy her a better one, but holster carry doesn’t really work too well for her. At some point I need to get her a new carry purse. The one she has now works, but the draw from it is a bit awkward. If you can’t draw the gun smoothly and quickly, I’m not sure there’s too much advantage to carrying.
I’m normally the designated shooter, carrying a Glock 19 at 4:00 in a Com-Tac Infidel holster. Of course, I know Tam isn’t too much of a fan of plastic guns, the europellet, or plastic holsters, so I doubt I’m ranking much higher than the open carry heretics on the Tam Approval Meter with that one :)
The High Road is Back
Looks like Oleg managed to get the forum back up at another URL. We wish them luck going forward.
The Final Debate
I was happy to see McCain hitting Obama pretty hard. My impression was that McCain was doing more outreach to the base on issues that get them fired up. McCain is pretty obviously not the most intellectual and articulate guy in the world, which is unfortunate going up against a candidate who can outright lie convincingly to your face, and it not only sounds believable, but wonderful. Obama is now apparently against partial birth abortion. That’s news to me! I think that’ll be news to the media too.
Sadly, the Second Amendment has been silent in this presidential election. I doubt the media is going to force Obama to talk about it, and I wouldn’t be shocked if “no gun control questions” was a condition of Obama doing the debates.
Overall, I would say, in the last two debates, there was no clear winner. In this debate, I actually think McCain came out ahead. He hit Obama on several issues that I think will scare even independents. Obama was clearly uncomfortable. But the rhetorical edge has gone to Obama in all three debates. I’ll be honest, I think Obama has a better understanding of the current economic mess than McCain does, but Obama’s problem is he looks for solutions through the lens of “Government First.” There’s no problem to which Obama thinks the solution lies in less government. His grasp of the issues is meaningless if his solution is wrong.
UPDATE: David Bernstein thinks McCain blew it, namely blew a lot of opportunity to deal a knock out punch to Obama. I agree that he wasn’t as strong as he needed to be, even if I do think his performance was better than the other two debates. One thing McCain has going against him is that conservatives are rather tired of having a president who can’t articulate our principles. We can’t expect voters, many of which barely pay attention to this stuff, to vote with us, when the leader of our ticket can’t successfully articulate the principles. We’ve had to deal with that for eight years. I’m happy to deal with it for eight more if that means we don’t have to deal with Obama, but I would really like an articulate candidate for conservative principles to take up the mantle and run with it. We’ve been sorely lacking that, and it shows.