November 2007 – Page 14 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Veterans Day Post

Thanks to all the veterans out there who risked their lives so we all can continue to enjoy our constitutional rights. I celebrated the day by exercising some of mine at Cabela’s in Hamburg, PA, and then again by loading five fresh 55gr .223 Remington cartridges by hand. The Bench of Evil is now operational. Bitter gets to stay an extra day tomorrow due to the holiday, so Happy Veterans Day everyone!

UPDATE: In the comments:

Apparently there is one living veteran of the American Expeditionary Force, Mr. Fred Buckles, of Charles Town, WV.

I think he ought to receive a full state funeral when he dies, as the representative of the two million Americans who were part of the AEF and as a final thank-you to those men.

If you agree, then I ask that you blog about the idea and also contact your congresscritters.

I agree that would be fitting.

Friends Dinner

Bitter and I just returned from a “Friends of the NRA” Banquet at the Middletown Township Country Club. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Friends Banquets, it’s 35 dollars per person, or 60 dollars per couple for the dinner. Before the dinner there are all kinds of raffles and silent auctions, followed by a live auction after dinner. Prizes are anything from cash prizes to firearms. Sadly, I didn’t win any of the raffles, though we came close. If we had arrived 5 minutes earlier, we would have been a winner. But I did win one silent auction item:

I thought it was cheesy, but Bitter liked it, so I bid on it, and put it over my Bench of Evil. The proceeds for the dinner, raffles and auctions go to the NRA Foundation, and doesn’t go to any of their political stuff. The Foundation does educational outreach and support for the shooting sports, so even if you don’t like NRA’s politics, it’s always safe to give to the Foundation if you just want to support the shooting sports. Half of the proceeds are guaranteed go to supporting shooting programs in the state hosting the dinner, in our case, Pennsylvania.

24, The Unaired 1994 Pilot

Funny.

Via Squeaky

Finnish Gun Laws to Change

Via John Lott, apparently the Finns were under quite a bit of international pressure to change it’s “lax” gun laws:

International gun control activists have urged the Finns to rethink their laws in the wake of Wednesday’s tragedy.

Finns are sensitive to their international image, and often complain their country is portrayed as a gloomy northern outpost of Europe, where long dark winters drive people to binge drinking, suicide or random outbursts of violence.

Sensitive, but they are agreeing to make this change in their law:

The government said Friday it would raise the minimum age for buying guns from 15 to 18, but insisted there was no need for sweeping changes to gun laws shaped by deep-rooted traditions of hunting in the sub-Arctic wilderness.

Good for them for pissing on Rebecca Peters and her group’s demands.Â But consider that Finland’s gun laws are still stricter than ours:

“The application was rejected because a 9 mm gun is considered too powerful … for target practice shooting,” Detective Superintendent Tero Haapala told The Associated Press. “He was recommended to get a .22-caliber gun.”

After Wednesday’s shooting drew international attention to Finland’s gun culture, the Interior Ministry issued a statement saying firearm sales were “strictly controlled.”

Before granting a weapons permit, police “assess the applicant’s suitability to posses a firearm, his or her way of life, behavior and possible mental health problems,” the statement said. Applicants must prove also they have a legitimate need for a gun, such as hunting or target practice. Self-defense is not a valid reason.

Sounds pretty strict to me, and yet:

Gun control activists said the shooting at the Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of Helsinki, proved the need for stricter gun laws in Finland.

“Compared to other European countries, Finland has a serious gun problem,” said Rebecca Peters, director of the London-based International Action Network on Small Arms.

Not enough.Â We must not give an inch to these people.Â They won’t stop until they all go under the saw.Â If Paul Helmks wants to find ways to work with the NRA, since his organization isn’t about banning guns and all, why doesn’t he start by denouncing this international gun ban movement led by Rebecca Peters?

Crimes Against Civilized Order

Armed and Safe is quite correct to point out that my Governor is a gun banning turd, but I did want to highlight something else he mentioned:

Alright, I have a big problem with this, even before we get to the “fight for three ‘gun-control’ laws” part. Whenever I see calls for “tougher penalties for shooting at a police officers [sic],” I get the impression that we are expected to believe that the lives of police officers are implicitly more valuable than the lives of us “Average Joes.” That’s a concept I utterly reject.

As long as proper protections are in place for self-defense, and the law requires knowledge that the person the actor reasonably knew, or should have known, the person he was shooting at was a police officer, acting in his official capacity, I have no problem with a law like this. But it’s not because I believe police should be considered by law to be a special class of “super citizen”.

The legal theory behind why shooting at, or murdering a police officer is a more serious offense is because it’s more than just an attack against another person, but an attack against civilized order. Riotous behavior is really, in theory, no more than a property crime in most cases. These days you really never see the authorities using deadly force on rioters, but in most states, it’s perfectly lawful to use deadly force on people engaged in riotous behavior. Under Pennsylvania Law:

The use of deadly force is not in any event justifiable under this subsection unless the actor believes that the use of such [deadly] force is necessary to suppress a riot or mutiny after the rioters or mutineers have been ordered to disperse and warned, in any particular manner that the law may require, that such [deadly] force will be used if they do not obey.

The reason for this is similar to the reason for making the penalty stiffer for shooting at a police officer.Â Although rioting is typically a property crime, it is more properly a crime against order.Â Civilization is but a thin veneer, and it doesn’t take much scratching to reveal the ugliness underneath, and our laws have tended to reflect that.Â It is for that reason that we ought to treat assault against a law enforcement officer more seriously than we do other types of assault, not because they are a protected or privileged class of citizen.

John Street Named Adjunct Professor

Apparently soon (but not soon enough) to be former Mayor of Philadelphia, John Street, is going to be teaching a course on urban politics at Temple University. Wyatt has some pretty amusing thoughts on what the topics of his classes might be.

More on Virginia Election

Sailorcurt does some more analysis of the election results in Virginia, which I talked about earlier here.

The Brady campaign seems to have a tendency to stick with “safe” endorsements. They don’t expect their endorsement to actually gain any votes for the candidates (except in certain, very specific areas) so they only make endorsements in races where they have a reasonable expectation to win.

Even with that, they don’t have a great success rate and they lost both of the races that were being touted by all involved as being “referendums on gun control”…Devolites-Davis lost her District 34 senate seat and Cuccinelli held onto his (by the skin of his teeth) in district 37.

Yep.Â And they are telling people it’s a win.

The strange thing is that the NRA seems to have the same tendency as the Brady Campaign. The NRA absolutely CAN have an impact on the election results but in many cases they seem to worry more about getting the “W” than supporting the superior candidates.

For example: In Senate district 14, the NRA supported “B” rated Henry Blevins against extremely Pro-gun (and VCDL endorsed) libertarian candidate Donald Tabor. There was no anti-gun candidate in the race so there was no danger of splitting the pro-gun vote…so why not support the superior candidate? Unless, of course, the “W” is more important than upholding principles.

Not all that strange.Â Most groups that issue endorsements will endorse as many safe, friendly seats as they can in order to inflate the value of their endorsements.Â I called out Brady mostly because they lost in the ones where they really took chances, and then touted it as a victory.

The main reason NRA won’t endorse Libertarian candidates is because Libertarians don’t win.Â If you endorse the Libertarian, the Republican who didn’t get your endorsement is going to be pissed at you, and might decide his B grade isn’t worth keeping.

Read Sailorcurt’s whole post.Â It’s a good analysis of the election.Â I’ve also written in the past about the Grading/Endorsement system, and how it’s more politics than principle.

What If We Lose?

Armed Canadian asks that question: What if we lose at the Supreme Court?Â Â I think he’s more optimistic than I am.Â While I agree that in the short term, it would be a huge boost to the gun rights movement, I would note that after the Kelo decision, there was a persistent outcry from quite a lot of directions, but to date I’ve seen very little movement on eminent domain reform.Â People have gotten tired and moved on.

A defeat at the Supreme Court will hurt us very much over the long term, because the anti-gun groups will be able to say “The second amendment doesn’t mean anything,” and for all practical purposes, they’d be right.

You Don’t Even Have a Collective Right

Dave Hardy dug up an unpublished decision from the 6th circuit that you all need to read to believe.

The court essentially rules that since the State Guard can be armed by the State when activated, and the governor *probably* would do that, ownership of the guns was not reasonably related to its purposes. Nevermind the question of training before being activated, or that the governor might find it convenient for the units to have their own equipment.

So if this is the case, then the court is basically saying the Second Amendment has no meaning whatsoever.Â This isn’t collective rights, this is no rights.

Karl Rove on Blogging

Via Instapundit, Danny Glover goes over Karl Rove’s statements on blogs:

“People on the fringe are no longer voiceless,” noted Rove. Blogs have the unintended effect of giving “angry kooks” an “inexpensive soapbox” and a sense of “pseudo-anonymity” that “brings forth the worst angels of our nature.” He trashed Daily Kos and the liberal blogosphere for using more “dirty words” than conservative blogs like Townhall and RedState.”The netroots, he said, “argue from anger rather than reason.” Many, he believes, blog for “personal release” and not “political persuasion.” He argued that the netroots have been largely ineffective and said MoveOn.orgâ€™s inability to end the war proves his point.

It’s true that blogging gives voice to the angry and disaffected, but I agree with Danny Glover that “like too much of official Washington, still doesn’t appreciate the medium”. Â Rove also stated:

“Every word, public utterance, and public appearance can be captured and put on the web. “If you don’t believe me, just ask Senator James Webb or former Senator George Allen.”

I don’t think this is a bad thing.Â While new media does offer the possibility of damaging a candidate, like it did with George “Macaca” Allen, it also offers the possibility for candidates to talk to readers in an entirely different way then they do now.Â That we’ve yet to have a candidate that really gets new media, and knows how to use it to effect, doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer them.