By attempting to riddle a van with bullets. I say attempting, because they weren’t very good shots.
Abolish the TSA
Glad to see this idea getting traction from a mainstream publication.
Hat Tip to SayUncle
I promise this won’t turn into an anti-TSA blog, but we had some issue with Bitter coming back from visiting family in Nashville, which I’m hoping she’ll write about, that has me on the warpath against the agency that never should have been created.
Happy Castle Doctrine Day!
Well, at least that’s what we hope to be saying by the end of the evening. The House comes into session at 1pm, and, according to John Micek, that means we might start to see some action on various legislation late this afternoon.
He also talks about the House Democratic leadership votes slated for tomorrow. It appears an NRA A-rated incumbent is likely to be Minority Leader, and that’s a nice perk even though the GOP won the House for the next term. For Democratic Whip, there’s another friend to gun rights running against 3 strong anti-gunners. That ain’t so good news.
I hope that all Pennsylvania gun owners learned why party leadership positions can make a difference in a vote. One man held up Castle Doctrine for months. The good news is that he’s being challenged from within his party by a pro-gun Democrat for the leadership position on his committee. While the Republicans will hold a bigger lead in the House next term than the Democrats currently have, we will still need the votes of pro-gun Democrats to defeat anti-gun amendments and to make up for any slacking anti-rights Republicans who might have slipped through. Even under one party rule, we can’t let this become a partisan issue.
Quote of the Day
Miguel notices that there’s a program in Mexico to melt down firearms and turn them into shovels:
This shovels will more likely be used to continuing piling the bullshit regarding US guns into Mexico and digging graves for those who are dying in the local Drug Wars.
They are going to need a lot more shovels to continue piling that much BS. Does anyone think the cartels are going to turn in their guns?
Color Me Surprised
I would think the Brady Campaign would be all over this guy. He’s a poster child for both their “Terror Loophole” legislation and their “Gun Show Loophole” legislation, even though he doesn’t seem to be on the watch list, could legally purchase firearms anyway, and didn’t seem to buy guns at gun shows. You know, just like Virginia Tech, which also had nothing to do with gun shows, became a rallying cry for closing the so-called “loophole.” That seems to fit the formula, find someone sufficiently scary, who your pet legislation would have done nothing to stop, then say it’s an example of why we need said pet legislation.
More TSA Nonsense
An account here. I’m through with flying until this crap stops.
Campus Carry, Round Two
Looks like there will be another effort to push campus carry again in Texas:
Simpson said he wants to file a substitute to his bill to allow private universities and colleges to opt out of the campus-carry law. Otherwise, any university or college in Texas could not stop “license holders from carrying handguns on the campus.â€
However, students would not be able to store handguns in their dorm rooms. Schools would not be held liable for any damages caused by the guns. If it passes, the law would go into effect Sept. 1, 2011.
This would be welcome, though, I’d want to know how they implement the opt-out practice. Will we need to carry a list of colleges and universities that opt out? It would seem to be that it’s perfectly within a private school’s right to expel someone for violating their rules, or to ask a person to leave their property. I’m not sure why the law needs to be involved.
Body Scanners
The current technology, we know, displays a nude image of your person to a TSA agent. Engineers are working on a version of this technology that just provides an outline of the person, and an image of any objects that the scanner picks up. This presents an interesting question as to whether this fixes the civil liberties issue with this technology. The general court consensus on airport searches is that they are reasonable. Good argument to be made that electronic strip searches are unreasonable. But what happens if technology makes it such that it’s no longer a strip search?
I’m conflicted, because I would like to see TSA abolished and for us to return to the pre-911 security arrangement. But if technology can be used to make the security less obnoxious, without unduly prying into people lives or peeking through their clothing, I’d rather have a machine analyze my body image than be groped by a security agent.
How They Think of You
More on TSA. I wonder what TSA agents would do if you handed out flyers in front of a security checkpoint informing the flying public on exactly what the body scanning machines do? I’ll bet there’s some federal law they’d try to nail you with. It’s sad, but I believe the majority of the flying public has no idea what the body scanner machines actually do.
Quote of the Day
Despite the “privacy” recitations of that formed the basis of Roe v. Wade, genuine privacy in this country is disappearing so quickly that itmakes my head spin.
Privacy is only approved for correct activities. If you activity is disfavored by the party, you have no privacy. Want to own a gun? No right to privacy there. And as Eric points out, you have no privacy right to decide what and what not to put into your own body too.