Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 1689 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Buy Your Own Country

From my friend and shooting buddy Jason, who isn’t cool enough to blog yet, I get this news item that the Principality of Sealand, an old World War II offshore artillery platform off the coast of Britain, is up for sale by the owner. A few years back the geek community was abuzz over a tech venture that set up a computer data center on the platform for use as a “data haven”. I’ve met some of the people involved with this venture, and Jason has the distinction of once beating Prince Michael at Hydro Thunder. The world would indeed be a poorer place without wealthy British eccentrics.

If you’ve ever wanted to own your own country, now is the chance.

Divorce In Virginia

Bitter has an interesting post up about some people who want to change divorce laws in Virginia that I think is worth a read:

So since a mandatory separation giving them a year to think about it already required, what is Clayton suggesting they change? It would appear from the article that the group really is trying to keep people from leaving a marriage if the other refuses to approve it. Itâ€™s not an ideal situation at all, but I think itâ€™s a bad path to go down if we refuse to let them out of it. If they really are just trying to add punishment like making custody rules tighter or something for the person who files, I really donâ€™t see how that does anything to improve a family.

I think Bitter is right here. If there’s a problem with people walking away from marriages too easily, the solution isn’t to pass more laws, and get the government to intrude more into people’s private lives. I don’t have too many issues with the government recognizing marriages, and dealing with the legal mess when they dissolve as a byproduct of that recognition, but I do have a problem, a big problem, with using it as a hook to meddle in people’s personal affairs. If the government ran my life as well as it runs itself, my life would be a mess. I agree that divorce is a problem, and people resort to it too quickly, but that’s not an issue for government to be concerned about.

It’s hard for me to understand how converatives like Clayton understand that the government is bad at running the economy, but somehow think it can be good at managing people’s lives. I don’t want people’s personal affairs becoming a political issue, no matter how messed up they are. People suck, and conservatives need to get over it, and stop looking for the government solutions to that basic fact.

How Not to Win

I’m going to start a category of gun related posts entitled “How Not to Win”.Â My intention is to point out issues within the pro-gun movement that I don’t think do us any favors politically, that don’t help win others over to our cause, and create barriers toward introducing new people to the shooting sports.Â These three things are critical, because most statistics are showing the traditional hunting culture is contracting, and if all of us want to keep our boomsticks, we need to work at replacing them with different kinds of shooters.Â As a community we certainly do a lot of squabbling among ourselves, , which is fine, even healthy, but at the end of the day, to quote Ben Franklin, we must hang together, or surely we will all hang seperately.

Buying Guns on the Internet

Up until now I’ve been pretty much an Evil Black Rifle guy, but lately I’ve been wanting to collect older stuff, since surplus is cheap, and I’m currently dumping a lot of money into remodeling a house. To that end, a few months ago, I obtained a C&R Federal Firearms License (FFL) from the ATF. I don’t notice too many gun bloggers blogging about C&R issues, so I figure I’d post some things about the subject from time to time.

The C&R license basically allows you to recieve and send firearms on the ATF C&R list, or any firearm over 50 years old in interstate commerce, from other licensed dealers, importers and wholesalers. Last night I completed my first purchase under the license; a Mosin-Nagant M91/30 from Century International Arms. I have to admit that it’s pretty cool to order a rifle off the Internet as if you were ordering a DVD on Amazon. It’ll be well worth the 30 dollars the license costs, since I intend to collect a few pieces. Needless to say, prices are lower when you can bypass your local dealer FFL and just order directly.

Goodbye to My Former Congress Critter

I never really completely liked Curt Weldon (which is probably true of any politician), when I lived in PA’s 7th congressional District, but I’m not really happy to see him replaced by an asshole like Joe Sestak. Gil Spencer has an editorial in the Delaware County Times that I think is worth a read if you follow Southeastern Pennsylvania politics:

When Weldon said during the campaign that he entered Congress poor 20 years ago and would leave congress poor, he wasnâ€™t kidding. Exaggerating maybe, but only slightly. Compared to his peers, Weldon is poor. And not only poor, but under federal investigation for public corruption because he is suspected of helping friends and family make money off his political position.

The last spotting of Weldon I heard about was around Christmas time. He was at the Granite Run Mall, in jeans and a ball cap, pushing a stroller with one of his grandkids in it. His lawyer, Bill Canfield, says heâ€™ll probably go back to teaching. No doubt he is hoping it will not be at some federal prison camp.
Whatâ€™s true is that compared to many of his peers, Weldon is a piker when it comes to turning his office into a moneymaking machine.

Pennsylvania Democrat Jack Murtha ranks 335th among his fellow congressmen for personal net worth, but heâ€™s helped his brother, Kit, and others make tens of millions. William Jefferson (D-La.) is said to be worth between $842,000 and $1.7 million depending, I guess, on whether all his appliances have been searched.

I don’t have a soft spot for corrupt politicians, and if Weldon is really guilty of what he’s been accused of, then I’m glad to have him out, but I’m not happy to have him replaced by Sestak, who I think will be a disaster for Delaware County. Weldon’s seat was targeted by the Democrats at the national level, and Weldon had a tough time keeping up with Sestak’s money machine. It was a bloodbath for Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs. The surprising thing in all this is that the man no one expected to keep his seat, Jim Gerlach, managed to eek out a victory over Lois Murphy. The defeat of my Congress Critter, Mike Fitzpatrick, by Pat Murphy, hadn’t garnered as much media attention since Fitzpatrick had only served a single term in Congress, and was an easy target.

At some point the Republicans are going to have to deal with a basic fact if they want these seats back in 2008; that George W. Bush’s version of conservatism is wildly unpopular in the traditionally heavily Republican Philadelphia suburbs. Under Bush’s reign, the suburbs are becoming more blue, and to reverse that trend, the Republicans will need a candidate who can appeal to the middle. Philadelphia Republicans are economic conservatives, and while they might go for some of the milder social conservatism of the party, Bush’s record of freewheeling spending, combined with embracing some of the more radical social conservative elements of the party have alienated him from voters in this area. The culture of corruption the Republicans fostered in Congress didn’t help either, but that can probably be said of voters anywhere.

Reading Experiences Sharp Drop in Violent Crime

I came across this article in The Reading Eagle today:

Following a record number of murders in 2005, Reading ended 2006 with the fewest slayings in a decade.

Eight murders were known to have occurred in the city last year, the fewest since 1995, when there also were eight.

In 2005, a record 24 murders were committed in Reading.

Overall in Berks County, 2006 had 12 murders, including the eight city slayings. Three of those slain outside the city were victims of murder-suicides.

This of course, begs the question to the politicians in Philadelphia, how Reading, which is subject to the same gun laws that they claim are woefully inadequate to stop the rising tide of violence in Philadelphia, has managed such a sharp drop in murders and other crimes? Maybe it’s time Mayor Street calls up Mayor McMahon for some advise on how to deal with crime, rather than begging the politicians in Harrisburg for assault weapons bans and other such nonsense that won’t actually fix the problem.

Israel Planning Attack on Iran?

From around the blogosphere, we’re hearing reports again that Israel plans to strike Iran first with nuclear weapons. I have my doubts that Israel would do this, and I suspect this was leaked as a way to bolster the diplomatic effort underway to get Iran to give up it’s nuclear program. If you view it along side plans to move a second carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf, I think that’s the most likely scenario. Diplomacy without a real threat of military force is just a bunch of talk, and without it, the Iranians have no reason to concede anything to us.

But there are numerous tactical problems involved with an attack by Israel on Iran. Israel lacks the in-flight refueling capability to project power that far away from the Levant, and no Arab country would allow Israel basing rights to use for the attack. So I would be very surprised if these leaked plans are for real.

Virginia and Pennsylvania Establish Reciprocity

This is good news for both PA LTC and VA CHL holders. Reciprocity with Virginia has been a long time coming. I’ve heard various reasons on why it hasn’t happened sooner, from our lack of training requirement, to Pennsylvania having no easy method for license verification. I’m glad to see if finally happening though.

More PA Preemption Issues

From Gun Law News, we hear that the NRA warns us that the York, PA City Council is considering banning concealed carry on municipal property (sorry about the registration requirement, but here’s the gist):

“It’s important to pass this ordinance,” said Police Chief Don Klug. “First of all, there’s the issue of the safety of citizens using local facilities. And there’s the issue of the safety of city employees, who are sometimes not confronted by people who are not pleased with certain situations. There can be confrontations. It seems clear that the city facilities are not a place for firearms. They’re excluded from schools, and the park system is a natural extension of that. I encourage you to pass the resolution.”

Hey, Chief Klug, if you can give me any evidence that a PA LTC holders has ever been involved in the type of incident you mention, I’ll shut the hell up, but I suspect that you don’t have any. I think it’s likely that you just don’t like the idea of anyone having guns but you and your fellow police officers. I expect nonsense like this to come out of Philadelphia, but I thought officials in York were smarter than that. Apparently not. But before you get too excited about this pet project you have going here, might I point you to the PA Consolidate Statutes Â§ 6120 (a):

General rule.–No county, municipality or township may in any manner regulate the lawful ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition components when carried or transported for purposes not prohibited by the laws of this Commonwealth.

So go ahead and pass your little ordnance, and if I ever have an occasion to visit municipal property in York, I’ll gladly ignore it, since the ordinance is void according to the law.

A Tribute To the Man Who Helped Put Me Through College

The inventor of Instant Ramen dead at 96.