Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 867 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Here We Go Again

Will someone please explain to me why NRA, after allowing carry at their meetings in the past at venues that allow it, such as the Kentucky Expo Center, and the Phoenix Convention Center,Â that they would deliberately not make an effort to letÂ attendeesÂ carry in Charlotte?Â Keeping in mind that with the Phoenix Annual Meeting, they went to great lengths to get the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control to suspend the liquor license of the convention center for the duration of the Annual Meeting (except for the banquet, whichÂ traditionallyÂ serves beer and wine) so that attendees could carry at Annual Meeting.

Now, in terms of site selection, I am going to agree with everyone that Charlotte, from what I’ve seen so far, is less than ideal, and not just on the issue of carry. I’m going to be an opponent of NRA going back there unless they fix their carry laws, among other things. But NRA has hosted its Annual Meeting in a lot of places, for reasons that I’ve mentioned before. Some of those venues are more friendly to carry than others.

NRA’s official statement about this issue goes as follows:

The claim that NRA does not want members to carry is flat out wrong. Both Phoenix and Louisville allowed concealed and open carry in the convention center. In fact, NRA fought to make sure attendees could carry at those locations.

In Charlotte, just like in every city that we have held our annual meeting, NRA is bound by legal and contractual obligations. We were unable to remove the prohibition due to state, city and convention center regulations.

Some people have mentioned an exception under the law for “A person participating in the event, if a person is carrying a gun, rifle, or pistol with the permission of the owner, lessee, or person or organization sponsoring the event.” This exception has two prongs. First, the person must be a participant. Second, the person must have permission.

While some may suggest that NRA could be the one giving permission, the reality is that NRA would not be the one who would determine whether or not someone is a participant. A prosecutor, judge, and jury would be ultimately making that determination.

Even if NRA declared all attendees participants, a prosecutor could argue that he/she was an attendee, spectator, guest of a member or a ticket holder, so that could not be relied on for a legal defense. And, in the end, it is the person with the gun who would be prosecuted. This is indeed a gray area, but without a clear exception there is a serious risk of arrest and prosecution, and NRA does not want our members risking prosecution.

The fact is if NRA only went to places that allowed CCW in convention centers, we would be limited to 2 or 3 choices. Because of the size of NRA’s conventions, we already are limited with our choices of cities that can accommodate us. We also strive to have regional balance to allow members from all over the country to attend. People should also be mindful that NRA has worked to change laws all over the country. With incremental wins, those who may not be able to carry in a certain location today may be able to do so down the road. After all, Arizona’s gun laws have come long way since we were there last year.

I am hoping this puts this issue to bed. I have no problem with reasonable, informed criticism of NRA, or the site selection committee. There’s a lot of valid points to be made for why Charlotte is less than an ideal site. But in the big picture, I think it’s a waste of time and energy to fret over this particular issue in this particular context. We’d be far better served working to change the laws and the political climate, much like happened in Arizona after the Annual Meeting was held there last year.

Not Backing Metcalfe on This One Either

As a civil libertarian, I have some real issues with what Daryl Metcalfe is trying to bring to Pennsylvania. This sounds great, but the only way to do this kind of thing in a racially neutral way is to have everyone prove immigration status if there’s some reasonable suspicion. Imagine the following traffic stop:

“What the problem then officer? I don’t think I was doing over 100k an hour”

“License, registration and proof of insurance, please.”

“Let me get it oot of the glove box then, eh.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask to provide some proof or documentation that you’re in the country legally.”

“OK officer, here’s my Minnesota drivers’ license, registration and proof of insurance.”

“I have reasonable suspicion that you’re an illegal Canadian sir. I’m going to have to ask you step out of the vehicle.”

“But I’m from Minnesota.”

“You sound like a Canadian sir. We’re going to have to sort this out downtown.”

I am by no means in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, nor against increased border protection, I don’t favor “haven cities,” and definitely not against cracking down on human smuggling. But I do not wish to turn the United States into an “Ihre Unterlagen, bitte.” police state in order to not really fix the problem.

I don’t agree with Dayln Leach on much, but I agree with him on this. It’s disturbing to me that so many lawmakers who recognize importance of the Right to Keep and Bear ArmsÂ as an important individual liberty don’t also recognize the basic right to a presumption of innocence by the government. That’s not just a right for the fair skinned. It’s a right of all people.

Family Traditions & Heirlooms

Even though my family wasn’t anti-gun, there aren’t any traditions of shooting or hunting, and I won’t get any guns passed down to me that are part of some multi-generational tradition. But that’s okay. My first gun was a gift from a special friend and still means a lot to me.

In welcoming a new contributor to Bitchin’ in the Kitchen, this bit in her first post really stuck out for me:

When Samuel was age 14, he saved up enough to buy a $500 rifle with his own money. This was no small feat. He saved for many months â€“ birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, worked at his grandfatherâ€™s farm, as well as around our house, to earn the money to pay for his gun. Itâ€™s an item of great sentimental value, and one he will keep until he decides to pass it on to his grandchildren. With that gun will go many stories of deer taken and deer missed, hunts shared with his father, cousins, uncles, and grandfathers, lessons learned, such as, working hard for something that lasted his lifetime.

Samuel is Virginia Gal’s son, and oh my goodness, there are some adorable pics that she included with the post. Check it out, and maybe I can get Granny – my mom & Virginia Gal’s friend – to talk her into sharing some good game recipes.

Quote of the Day

From Marko, who notes that people are giving Major Caudill a major case of the gay phobia:

Iâ€™m rightly confused, I am.Â If you think that the right to self-defense is a human right, and you donâ€™t like the idea of a gay person exercising it, then it necessarily follows that you donâ€™t think gays should be afforded the whole set of human rights.Â If thatâ€™s the case, then please stay the f[**]^*k off my side.

If you donâ€™t support the same freedoms for everyone, then you donâ€™t support freedom.Â Being in favor of freedom only for yourself and folks mostly like you is no virtue at all.Â It requires no sacrifice, no tolerance, and no brainpower.Â It will also cost you your pet freedoms sooner or later, once you find yourself as a member of the 49% whose cornflakes the other 51% vote themselves the right to pee on.

In the sameÂ veinÂ there’s plenty of people out there who don’t give a whit until it’s their liberty on the line, even though they say they value liberty. I’ve met a few people who areÂ adamiteÂ about both legalizing pot, and socializing the medical profession, all in the name of human rights, of course.

* Note the censorship of the language was mine. Not because I give a s**t about it, but because I understand it trips some people’s web filters who are reading from work, and causes the site to block until the offending word is cleared from the page. I will try in the future to be better about this. It’s also why I have the word p0rn in gun p0rn set with a zero in the categories. BTW, if your work uses those kinds of filters, I have sympathy for you. As an IT professional, I’ve refused on a few instances to censor web pages based on keywords. There are good business reasons not to do so.

More on the Caving Gun Club

PAIndependent has done some research into the Keith Olbermann-loving Elstonville Sportsmanâ€™s Association and finds that their latest excuses for canceling the LiveFreePA event don’t really match their history.

The club’s board of directors met Monday night “to discuss the recent events that have unfolded in the media pertaining to the event scheduled for May 8,” according to Steve Lowe, an Elstonville board member. “Elstonville is a sportsmen’s association and will not be affiliated in any way with political actions and/or statements to the media or the general public. We…will not be associated with events such as this.”

Get that, they never do anything political. Which is why they hosted LiveFreePA in 2009 with Ted Nugent. Sure. Oh, and there’s that pesky fact that they let a Republican lawmaker hold a fundraising shoot there in 2008. And who could forget that they are hosting another directly partisan fundraiser again the following week?

The people who criticized the event would be the first to shut down the gun club if given the opportunity. As mentioned yesterday, there’s Keith Olbermann. But locally, it was Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Hoeffel who complained. First, he’s no one. He was once a Congressman who no one liked, so they booted him out of office. He’s now a County Commissioner just outside of Philadelphia who is running somewhere between last and next to last place in a crowded primary. He has endorsed a whole range of gun control.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE8lrejGuac[/youtube]

I suspect that Elstonville Sportsmanâ€™s Association is suffering from a problem that I’ve seen at other area gun clubs. Namely, that they are scared of politics and “new” things. They want to sit down comfortably and stick their heads in the sand while the world changes around them. It doesn’t matter that they people they cave to are actively leading the fight to take their guns, close gun clubs, and kill the shooting sports culture.

At the very least, their board is on the record lying to pro-gun groups about banning all political events while turning around and hosting partisan fundraisers. I’m not sure if that makes their actions any better, or actually worse.

I’ve worked with gun clubs in several states. I am most concerned about the health of the clubs I’ve seen here in Pennsylvania. Some of them actively try to keep shooters out, others pretend that politics doesn’t exist even when it surrounds and threatens their sport, and then you have Elstonville which thinks that giving into the Joe Hoeffel agenda is more important than supporting an organization that has promoted liberty and firearm freedom in Harrisburg. Now they are putting up the flag of no politics ever, which means they will forever close any access they had to local pro-gun politicians.

I’ve heard it best described as the need for a hundred mini-Cincinnati revolts (i.e. the Annual Meeting fight that lead to the creation of NRA-ILA & finally got gun owners involved in politics). Gun clubs should be about the shooting sports first and foremost. But because politics will mean the difference between prosperity in the culture and taking the very guns we use to compete and defend our lives, it means that clubs cannot sit out of the game. In a healthy club, members even find out that a) political work isn’t very hard, and b) it can even be a little fun, especially if it’s social and there is food involved. By sitting out of the game, club leaders are throwing their own members under the bus. Members shouldn’t sit idly by and let that happen.

Getting Rid of POC Systems

There’s been talk among pro-gun voices in Pennsylvania about eliminating PICS, the state point-of-contact background check system. It looks like there’s an active effort in Colorado to do just that. It’s being touted as a cost saving measure, because the state would save approximately 1.7 million dollars by relying on the federal system. In this time of tight state budgets, the money argument is probably the winner. The only difficulty we have here in PA is that our PICS system is being used for a number of different reasons, including conducting background checks for teachers. That complicates the issue a bit more for using the cost saving argument, at least here in Pennsylvania.

The main reason for doing this here in PA, is that the state system has more downtime than the federal system, and when the system is down all gun sales are halted, and we revert to the Brady waiting period. Since very few dealers are willing to do default proceeds after the waiting period, this essentially halts all gun sales for the duration of the outage. The other reason is that it would interfere greatly with the State Police using PICS to keep a registry of all guns sold in the Commonwealth. The legislature intended to prevent this eventually, but the State Police found a legal argument around it. If you’ve bought a gun in the past decade, they know about it. We’ve had individuals have guns seized from them in traffic stops because local policeÂ erroneouslyÂ believe the State Police database is a comprehensive registry. This has been difficult to remedy legislatively.

Open Carry Victory in Oklahoma

It’s won house approval. I support this bill. I don’t personally like open carry, but I believe it should be legal. You still need a concealed carry permit, but if you have one, you have a choice. As the article mentions, which is true, very few people, practically are going to choose to do it.

Now We’re a Cancer

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed, who was recently sold to creditors. They got a veteran to do the op-ed, because who can argue with a veteran, after all.

PA Gun Club Caves to Keith Olbermann

Let’s pretend you are a member of a gun club. Keith Olbermann attacks you because you’re going to allow right-of-center folks to come to your shooting range to shoot guns & very possibly say less than pleasant things about far left policies & socialism. Why would you cave to Keith Olbermann? He’s not your friend. He doesn’t even believe in the Second Amendment and declared SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia as the “Worst Person in the World” for writing the Heller opinion.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STwsbUwcO4U[/youtube]

Apparently, if you’re on the board of Elstonville Sportsmen’s Association, you vote to cave to Keith Olbermann. Really?

They were to host a fundraising shoot by the Commonwealth Foundation next weekend, and part of the arranged fun was to include targeting a car with bad policy names written on it – cap and trade, Obamacare, and card check. The idea of conservatives blowing holes through their policy positions painted on the side of a junker car (perhaps a clunker not turned in during Cash for Clunkers?) sent Keith Olbermann’s head spinning, along with some others in the media.

Just minutes ago, Commonwealth Foundation announced that Elstonville’s leaders have pulled the plug on the event because of pressure from people who don’t even support their right to have a gun club.

In the 11th hour, under intense pressure from those who would deny the freedoms in the First and Second Amendments, the host of the Commonwealth Foundation’s second annual LiveFreePA celebration pulled the plug. Due to the short notice, the Commonwealth Foundation will reschedule LiveFreePA for the fall, at a club that stands tall for our rights and freedoms.

The Elstonville Sportsmen’s Association’s decision is regrettable, but more regrettable are the attacks on this lighthearted and safe event by left-wing pundits and gun-control advocates. This reminds us all that if the inalienable rights of citizens to express and protect themselves are to survive, those who cherish them must stand firm against those who seek to erode or limit those rights. This incident underscores how vulnerable our freedom truly is, and the need to celebrate and defend it anew.

Seriously? The gun club has no statement on the matter, so if there is more to this, they are keeping their lips locked.

Bloomberg Grandstanding

He’s appearing before a committee urging that we deny constitutional rights without due process. The funny thing is theÂ committeeÂ he’s appearing before can’t do anything about the legislation he wants. Normally that kind of thing goes through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Leahy, who seems to be kissing up to gun owners these days, with Sessions as the ranking member. I’m going to guess they aren’t going to give Bloomberg’s favored bill a hearing, and Reid certainly wants to keep that bill off the floor.

So it’s the Homeland Security and Government for Bloomberg, which is chaired by Lieberman, with Collins as the ranking member. Â Neither true friends of the Second Amendment. Fortunately for us, Coburn is on that committee, and I think he’ll be having none of Bloomberg’s crap. Interesting to see will be how Scott Brown acts. I expect McCain to be tough on Bloomberg as well, since he’s in a tough primary race this year, and he’ll wants to look more conservative than thou, so to speak.