I hope everyone had a nice holiday. Ours was a bit of a mixed bag since Bitter’s grandfather died on Friday at age 91. Her other grandfather died when she was a year old, but both her grandmothers are still living. Enough about that, maybe I have some news I’ve been collecting. Some of it might be a bit dated, but hopefully obscure enough you might not have seen it:
Looks like Miss Sloane was a box office bust. This is a good cultural indicator, but when is it ever fun to pay someone to give a political lecture. There are plenty of people on the Internet who will give you one for free!
The EU agrees to new gun control laws. I’m sure that’ll work just great!
Apparently Bloomberg’s people proffered a film plot from a small-time filmmaker in order to turn it into a statement on behalf of gun control. I’d argue they ruined his film by bringing politics into it.
The microstamping suit in California has been reinstated. I think we’re going to see a lot of movement on legal cases now that there will be an Administration change. However, it’s probably worth noting that replacing Scalia with another judge who’s solid on the issue doesn’t get us anywhere. I’ve said for a while I think Roberts is the soft underbelly of the Heller majority, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
Chicago is trying to get everyone fingerprinted to get FOID cards. If Republicans suggested such a thing for voting there would be (justifiable) outrage.
More good cultural indicators: minorities continue to arm up. I don’t blame them. If even half the things being spread about Trump were true, they’d be fools not to. Also, The Liberal Gun Club says they are seeing a membership surge. Come for the panic, stay for the freedom.
Charles C.W. Cooke is writing in America’s 1st Freedom: “The trappings of true grassroots organizations (like NRA) are curiously missing from gun control groups. Where are their conventions? Where are the bus tours, the meetups, the magazines, the marches?”
Texas is floating a bill to make carry licenses free. I have a better idea: why not stop requiring them in the first place?
Local news story on silencers. I think we’re going to win on this, largely because I think we’ve found good arguments, and the other side basically has nothing. Why do they hate our hearing?
David Keene: “Heller ruling just the start on gun rights.”
Bring back the blue dogs! This is spot on, which is exactly why it will get ignored.
Gun owners fit no stereotype. Back when I got into shooting I didn’t fit the stereotype either, but the older I get the more I fit the stereotype.
Blood in the streets, they say, if Trump signs a reciprocity bill. That argument was worn and tired twenty years ago.
USA Today: “Trial reveals Roof’s gun purchase went unchallenged by store owner.” The real headline would be “FBI cocks up background check on Roof.”
Victory in PA Commonwealth Court over local ordinance banning guns in parks.
Prof. Nelson Lund: “The Right to Arms and the American Philosophy of Freedom”
The Brady Campaign are celebrating failure in their fundraising campaigns. To be fair, spinning loss as victory is about all they can do. All the movement in this issue has been the result of Bloomberg, and as John Lott has argued, he doesn’t have much to show for the money spent.
The Hill: “What Gun Groups Want from Trump.”
Gun sales surged ahead of new California Assault Weapons Ban.
The fight against new restrictions in the EU is not over yet, although we’re in a bad spot.
We’ve been able to push back against the original sweeping semi-auto rifle ban that the EU Commission put on the table merely five days after the Bataclan attack.
We’re still facing a magazine ban (max 10 rounds for rifle, 20 for handguns; what about mags that fit both handguns and rifles?) and extra layers of red tape. Next six month will be decisive.
Contrast between freedom-hating and old (decrepit?) western Europe and eastern Europe is obvious. Eastern Europe still has vivid memories of where statism leads. Western governments are pushing hard to ban as much stuff as possible (at EU-level, so that they can claim “it comes from Brussels, not us!”).
Only positive note from that shit show: European gun owners have been able to come together.
However, it’s probably worth noting that replacing Scalia with another judge who’s solid on the issue doesn’t get us anywhere. I’ve said for a while I think Roberts is the soft underbelly of the Heller majority, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
Roberts isn’t going anywhere, but Ginsburg is older than dirt and ain’t getting any younger.
Replacing Scalia AND Ginsburg with solid Originalists would leave us a majority even if Roberts went squishy, and if he didn’t it’d be a 6-3 victory instead of a 5-4.
Bring Back Bluedogs – ughh.. I can’t stand that guy’s writing style. All the “heck, goshdarn, blah blah”,
“But y’know, blah blah”,
“[rhetorical question followed by forced folksy vernacular]”. Guy probably wrote it at 2am after a few drinks and didn’t bother to reread in the morning with an eye towards succinctness.
Couldn’t make it through, so skipped to and skimmed the end. Here’s my TL;DR:
Demos are out of touch with dumb people, need to be part of solution rather than looking down noses, get candidates that bridge the gap by having a foot in the hick swamp and one foot in the educated circles.
Hmm.. I guess that’s one way to look at it.. more understanding is always better, but the article still starts from the perspective of “we lost because the other side is too dumb to know what’s good for them”.
But this line of his kills me:
“This is an insurgency; we’re the Wolverines, they’re the Soviets. We have to fight on a shoestring budget and make Republicans bleed everywhere we can. We need to hold their feet to the fire on Trump. We need all hands on deck for this evolution, ya’ll, or there’s a damn good chance our country could go by the wayside.”
THEY’RE the Wolverines? Wow.. A) good luck if your blue audience relates to or gets the reference, bud; B) I think dude needs to go back and watch that movie again. The original. I agree that we ALL need to hold Trump’s feet the fire, as with every president, but sorry – I see the narrow avoidance of Hillary as — I say, I say, an enorm’us victory for the rebellion, a blow to the darn empire.
The EU wouldn’t need any gun control if they’d just kept Europe….. European.
“The EU wouldn’t need any gun control if they’d just kept Europe….. European.”
So you’re saying the Germans, Russians, and assorted other butchers weren’t actually European?
Or, that those butchers didn’t engage in gun control?
Help me out here. . .
Imagine France without banlieueus. Would they need gun control then? Who’s committing most of the violent acts in France?
Imagine Sweden without the recent arrivals. Would the rape epidemic be as bad as it is now? Do you really think the native Swedes are as prone to violence as their newly imported neighbors?
And what about Germany? Wouldn’t it be nice if Germany didn’t have a hostile population living among them?
And what is it about Chicago that makes certain areas more dangerous than others? Geeeeeee…..
“Wouldn’t it be nice if Germany didn’t have a hostile population living among them?”
Sorry, but members of my family remembered when Germans were the hostile population living among them.
And when I visited the Old Country, they warned me not to wander into the Russian neighborhoods, which were far more dangerous than others.
Sorry, but that’s not the world we live in today.
So you are saying that there are no Europeans?
Or, that Europeans have changed in some fundamental way, in only a few decades?
Time will tell; time will tell.
They don’t need any gun control regardless.
“As it turns out, NAGR is just one of a pack of ankle-biter groups, all of which trace back to Mike Rothfeld.”
But Mike Rothfeld also traces directly to the Rand Paul campaigns, so, does that make Rand Paul an ankle-biter?
Tracing all of those groups to Mike Rothfeld was darn good work, but now to win the bonus points and extra credit, what is the common denominator of all the people associated with Mike Rothfeld and his groups?
They are all tied to dominionism?
Bingo!
Mike Rothfeld used to conduct ankle-biter activist training (for all “causes”) sponsored by the National Right to Work Committee, which is another front organization. He was preceded in that by Huck Walther, who was more of the Christian Reconstructionist persuasion.
Yes, Ron Paul is an ankle-biter.
The reason I’m no longer with the Tennessee Firearms Association is that the ED got in bed with NAGR several years ago and proceeded to lose his everloving mind.
The TFA accomplished some great things before they started sending emails like the ones described in that article. Now there’s only a handful of state legislators who take them seriously.
No surprises there.
But, I’ll repeat my question: Does the TFA’s ED have a common denominator with Mike Rothfeld’s other ankle-biters?
(That is a sincere question because I don’t know; the common denominator isn’t a necessary condition, but it helps. However, those people are past masters at exploiting useful idiots.)
Hint
“Chicago is trying to get everyone fingerprinted to get FOID cards. If Republicans suggested such a thing for voting there would be (justifiable) outrage.”
we had this installed in MD and the average person who would scream bloody murder about voter ID thought it was fine and good. despicable.
Maryland’s Senate Judiciary also thought it awesome that hairdressers need to be fingerprinted before they get their jobs.
Wonder what they’ll say when we link biometric prints for voting to the federal immigrant tracking system?
Your fingerprint won’t decide if you can vote (everyone can vote), but it will be used to decide whether you get prosecuted (and everyone – local, state or federal – is allowed to prosecute.
You’re concerned about the Supreme Court. Here’s where the real action is
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-inherit-more-than-100-court-vacancies-plans-to-reshape-judiciary/2016/12/25/d190dd18-c928-11e6-85b5-76616a33048d_story.html?utm_term=.4196972a1fc2
Getting “good” judges on the lower benches will do more for our cause than any single or even 2 SCOTUS judges. Most cases don’t go to SCOTUS
That’s what I think as well.
It could be made even better if Congress would grant a long-standing request by the judiciary and establish a couple of hundred new judge positions. While it makes me gag to hear judges complain about workload, this is an opportunity to really move the needle.
The Ninth is long past needing to be split into at least two (possibly three) circuits. Reapportion existing Ninth judges between the new circuits and then expand all circuits everywhere.
Trials are backing up so long in the federal courts that criminal proceedings have slowed to the point where claims that the process is unconstitutional are actual real concerns for the courts. Justice Roberts testified on it a few years ago.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/8805022.Fossgate_bullet_find_mystery/#
If anyone wants a good laugh they should click the above link. It shows how hilariously different the EU is from the U.S. With regard to gun culture.