Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 595 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Getting Beaten in White House Petition Drive

Now there’s a petition at the White House site calling for the defeat of HR822, started by Philadelphia’s police chief, and it’s way ahead of ours. Nearly all the signatures are from California, which makes me wonder if the this was put out to a very large list. I questioned whether the Brady Campaign can have that kind of impact, which makes me wonder if OFA is using some of their reach. This was launched October 11th, and it already has double our number of signatures?Â I’ve been around this issue a long time, and I’ve never seen our opponents display that kind of grassroots power.

I’m not saying the signatures are necessarily bogus, but someone is a lot more powerful and with more reach than our opponents is either promoting this, or someone is playing games. Either way, we have to get our game on and counter this.

UPDATE: Judging from this, it looks like MAIG is behind this drive, and they are pulling out all the stops. This is quite good for us, because it means that our opponents have pulled out all the stops just to deal with our little guerrilla petition drive. It’s worth noting that NRA won’t throw its weight behind a White House push until there’s a bill on his desk. Surely we can think of other ways to spread our opponents thin as the debate on HR822 really heats up?

BTW, if this is all MAIG driven activity, that’s further evidence they are the real deal, and will be supplanting the hecklers at Brady, CSGV and VPC as our primary, and most dangerous opponents.

UPDATE: At the rate new signatures are being added, I’m really curious what method is being used to promote this. A quick search of the Internet only reveals the letter from Michael Nutter. Maybe they are hitting up people at the anti-gun range, and asking them to sign.

UPDATE: Bitter thinks it might be they are using e-mail lists, perhaps ones they rented or purchased. If you see one of these in the wild, please forward it to me.

Harrisburg, PA files for Bankruptcy

Only the second U.S. city to do so. Go Pennsylvania! Sounds like the city lost a lot of its money in a boondoggle. “Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!“

More Whittling Away at GCA ’68

SayUncle notes another bill is being introduced to allow people to buy handguns out of state from FFls, and significantly ease interstate transactionsÂ between FFLs. These restrictions were a cornerstone of the Gun Control Act of 1968. If this can be repealed, it will be a testament to how far we’ve come. The sponsors of this bill are Senator Orin Hatch of Utah, and Senator Mark Begich of Alaska.

Our opponents are duly focused on HR822. But I don’t worry about them. They are in great shape to fight a multi-front war against the likes of us.

Who To Vote For

I’m glad our opponents are busy helping make lists of politicians to vote for based on today’s mark-up session for HR822. That will save me some time:

GOP House Judiciary members were virtually unanimous in voting today to allow the following individuals to carry guns in public in states outside their home state: 1) Misdemeanant sexual offenders 2) Individuals on the Terrorist Watch List 3) Individuals with misdemeanor convictions for stalking. We really must have this bill. If the NRA says we need it, they will vote for anything without thinking through the real life consequences. Or maybe they have thought through the real life consequences which is even scarier and stupider!

I have a friend who’s a misdemeanor sex offender. Her offense? She did some modeling when she was younger, and did a topless photo shoot on what she thought was a secluded beach. Apparently not so secluded that someone didn’t notice, and called the police. She plead down to a charge that didn’t require registration, but it’s still a “sex offense.” Do you know what also is a misdemeanor sex offense? Getting a little too drunk in college and mooning someone. Being convicted of touching children is a prohibiting offense in every state that I know of, and touching children is exactly what our dishonest opponents want you think about when they mislead the public by proposing nonsense like this.

Individuals on the terror watch list we’ve long covered, but suffice it to say we don’t deny constitutional rights in this country without due process, which is precisely what our opponents advocate when they suggest this asinine idea.

I’m not even sure what a misdemeanor conviction for stalking is, as a matter of a “one-size-fits-all” rule. This is a new one. It’s always good to know the thinking of the gun control crowd when they are thinking of new ways to get more and more people prohibited from gun ownership.

I checked Pennsylvania’s statutes, and “Stalking” in Pennsylvania is a 1st Degree Misdemeanor, with a possible sentence of up to 5 years. This is a disabling offense federally. One thing to remember is that you’re a prohibited person under federal law if you’re convicted of any misdemeanor that has a possible sentence two years or more, even if you don’t end up serving any time in jail at all.

Given that HR822 only applies to individuals who are not prohibited under federal law, what classes of persons do our opponents mean to cover here? Once again they are being misleading and dishonest. Once again, they are hoping the American public doesn’t know better. And once again, I would like to point out, they are losing.

Bob Mensch Found Not Guilty

State Senator Bob Mensch got into some hot water over allegations of brandishing a pistol a while backÂ during a confrontation with an aggressive driver along I-78 in Pennsylvania. He wasÂ found guilty, but vowed an appeal. On appeal his conviction was tossed, and he was found not guilty. His whole case seemed to be a “he said, she said,” kind of deal, in which case the uncertainty should break in favor of the defendant.

More Poor PR from the Brady Campaign

Thirdpower notices some other amateurish rhetoric from the Brady Campaign, greatly exaggerating our losses in Court. We really did not have a substantive loss until Heller II. They are correct to tout that as a serious loss. The only other Circuit Court decision to date was Ezell, which won big time. I would also point out to the Brady folks that the final word has not yet been written on even Heller II. It’s just likely we’re going to have to attack the bogus “assault weapons” issue through another federal circuit.

The Subpoena

Dave Hardy has a link to the details of what was demanded of the Justice Department. I had not realized until listening to Cam & Company last night (or maybe the night before) that this is actually a rare thing, for Congress to issue to a subpoena to an Attorney General. Apparently this hasn’t happened since Watergate.

Holder is a slippery bastard, so I haven’t been skeptical he’s going to get punished for any of this, but in that vein, things seem to be decidedly looking up.

HR822 Committee Hearing and Vote

Supposedly HR822 is scheduled to be voted on in the judiciary committee today. I think it’s likely a fore-drawn conclusion that it will be voted out of committee. Our opponents are nervous. “Blood in the streets!” and yada yada. They probably could have gone with reading a bit more Aesop than Alinsky.

UPDATE: I’m to understand that this is a markup session, to consider various amendments to the bill. Our friends at CSGV have been following this very closely. You’d think they were worried or something.

More on that 3D Printed AR-15 Magazine

Steve of the Firearm Blog asked someone to try it, and on their home unit, that’s presumably a Makerbot Thing-O-Matic, the results weren’t quite as good. We found ABS is a pretty poor material for magazines too, but it’s certainly doable.

For the Love of Darwin!

I’m speechless. All I can think of is that the gene pool here could use a little chlorine.