Two guys walk into a bar in Pennsylvania, both carrying guns. An argument ensues, causing both men to be shot in the process of said argument. At least one of them was a felon-in-possession, having previously been convicted of aggravated assault with a firearm. The felon who was shot sued the bar owner, arguing that his failure to search bar patrons was negligence. A federal court has just rejected the lawsuit.
A New Challenge for Pro-Gun Efforts
In 2008, Sen. O’Pake was A rated and endorsed by NRA. It’s not uncommon for a Democrat outside of the Philly area, but it is still notable because he represented an area with a very high number of hardcore MAIG mayors.
Gun owners need to get involved in the Democratic Party efforts to fill the seat at primary time. In addition to being a likely solid blue district, the local GOP doesn’t seem to give much thought to gun rights based on the attitudes of the last two challengers. In 2004, the Republican refused to even respond to NRA’s questionnaire. In 2008, the GOP candidate received a whooping C-. Hopefully, local gun owners can make sure the candidate looking to fill the seat are both pro-gun by putting pressure on the local leadership and candidate hopefuls in both parties.
Losing a pro-gun Democratic Whip in the Senate when it is the GOP senators causing the hold up with Castle Doctrine could make it harder to pass as a clean bill next session. We’ll really need to boost our efforts and outreach with other friendly members of the minority and majority parties who will stand up for our rights against the leadership.
In the meantime, our thoughts certainly go out to Sen. O’Pake’s family and friends.
ABC Pushing Brady Agenda
Not biased. No. Not at all. Newsbusters mentioned:
Again, she was speaking to the assistant director of legislative affairs for the Brady Campaign. This is a group that opposed the historic 2008 Supreme Court decision declaring the Second Amendment an individual right. To describe one of their representatives as “not anti-gun” strains credibility.
Without a doubt. This comes to us via Cam Edwards, who no doubt will be talking about this on his show tonight. They are just nice people, you see, looking for common sense solutions to gun violence. They aren’t gun hating zealots. Heavens no.
Armed Citizen Returning?
Still Holiday Time
Off between Christmas and New Years, but only partially. Too much to do to take the whole time completely off, but it’s an excuse to work from home where I can get things done more efficiently. Since we’re sort of snowed in today, after a coastal storm decided to hit us with snow and wind yesterday until this morning, I might as well get some things done around the house. Installing some programmable thermostats, and in addition to that, I have a leaky shower drain that I’ve needed to fix for some time. Now I have time to do all those things.
Words of Wisdom from Cracked.com
6 Animals Humans Made Way Scarier. Number five is cougars:
According to some researchers, mankind’s cessation of anti-cougar activities has caused the cats to lose their fear of humanity. And really, we shouldn’t need researchers to tell us that, if we don’t show large predators we pose at least some kind of threat, they’re going to learn to think of us as soft, pink, vertical burritos ripe for the snacking.
They lament the difficulty of dealing with this problem, noting that “Unfortunately, the solution to this problem is far from simple, since ‘Shoot more cats, and when you do, by god, aim for the kittens!’ is not exactly a catchy rallying cry.” I beg to differ!
A Border Crackdown?
New York Times says “At Last,” as if they have been in favor of securing the border all along. First, this measure will do nothing at all to disarm drug cartels. It will do nothing to interfere with guns being trafficked along the border any more than the laws against drugs interfere with drugs being trafficked. What it will do is create a lot of new paperwork the ATF will have to hire more people and get larger budgets from Congress to keep track of. Some bureaucrats will get better offices, and get to generally enhance their kingdoms.
Anyone who thinks you can disarm drug cartels is either crazy, a fool, or some combination of the two.
A Solution to the GWOT
I honestly can’t imagine anyone, who upon tasting a Honey Baked Ham, wouldn’t renounce his pork avoiding faith, and adopt a believe system that is more benign, and which allows for such culinary indulgences.
Holiday Finds
The next few days is dinner marathon. Last night was my Aunt Kathy’s, tonight was pot roast with Bitter’s mother and grandmother, tomorrow is the main event with combined families. To make it more interesting, I haven’t a functioning stove or oven, because the gas line supplying such, which runs under a concrete slab, has a leak. Christmas dinner will be cooked on a combination of a Weber Smokey Mountain, a GE hot plate, a dual burner Coleman propane camp stove, an oversized toaster oven, and a George Foreman grill. Sounds difficult, but you can produce quite a meal with that combination.
My cousin Rob and I, at the Christmas Eve dinner, were going through a big box of stuff from my grandmother’s, who passed away in 2004. I managed to find a really good picture of my mom:
I’m 90% certain this is a graduation photo, which puts her age at 17 or 18. My mother died at 43 of breast cancer, when I was a sophomore in college. The photo above was probably circa 1968, considering my mother graduated in 1969. 
She had me at the age of 23, and my cousin Rob and I were joking how we always thought our mothers were so old, but you look at pictures of them now, and they were kids. Yet they had children. The picture to the left is from Christmas of 1975, my second Christmas. I still have that stocking somewhere, I think.
I was fortunate that my Uncle Rick had his trains set up this Christmas. That’s one memory I have from years ago. Some of his Lionel trains date from the 1940s, and were purchased at the Lionel Store in New York City. Back then they were made to last. His set up is still quite impressive, and the current setup did not even encompass the whole collection. I have some experience with model trains as Christmas gifts from years ago. Here’s an early scene with my dad, probably from the late 1970s, where I got a set of HO scale trains for Christmas. I would later also get the Lionel scale trains.
We were both a lot thinner then. I had those trains for a number of years, when sadly they were destroyed by fire during my Gomez Adams years.
And that’s not all that far off how they went. Fortunately, I never combined that with my penchant for giving my hamsters a ride in gondola car. They always looked very confused, but tolerated it. They were fortunate my rocketry experiments never resulted in seeing how high I could launch the short tailed rodents, and safely retrieve them.
And here my parents probably thought they were providing adequate supervision.
UPDATE: For those younger folks in the audience who might not know much pop culture trivia, the actor playing the part of Gomez Adams is John Astin, who is the adoptive father of this actor, who’s mother is Patty Duke. He was a child star in one of my favorite movies as a kid, and rather than taking up an adult career of knocking over liquor stores, took up a leading role in more recent movies you may have heard of. Not sure, however, what his separation factor is from Kevin Bacon.