November 2007 – Page 15 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Reid Drug Emporium

With Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid’s sons in jail, and with media folks of all stripes throwing him a giant pity party, Kansas City Star and Fox Sports commentator Jason Whitlock hits the nail on the head with this column that eviscerates Reid & his wife, the “drug emporium” that became of their house, the sports media, and the War on Drugs.

America’s morally bankrupt war on drugs, a cause that has killed and destroyed more lives than Vietnam and Iraq combined, has finally put Andy Reid’s kids on the front lines (incarceration), and Andy Reid doesn’t have a damn meaningful thing to say about it.

That’s unacceptable. It’s cowardly.

Andy Reid knows my pain, and he’s too worried about a freaking football game to verbalize it. He could make Middle America and the power structure understand the helplessness and the pain you feel when people you love get caught up in America’s political ploy called a “war on drugs.”

Echoing Whitlock’s sentiment, is a piece in the Ed/Op section of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer by Douglas Marlowe.

For too long in this country, the approach toward substance-abusing offenders wavered between incarceration without treatment and treatment without supervision – one or the other, rarely both. The incarceration-without-treatment approach is an outgrowth of our “war on drugs,” a nationwide response to the scourge of drug addiction that failed miserably on a number of levels, not the least of which being the flawed assumption that jails are an effective response to the problem of drug-related crime.

Marlowe applauds the judges use of the combination of treatment and monitoring with small jail sentences. It’s time for Andy Reid to step up, do the same, and insist that it the norm for everyone, not just for the affluent.

But, oh yeah, he’s got a game to prepare for.

Something’s Fishy in Upper Darby

If you’re into collecting and shooting firearms, it’s a very good idea to not also be into drugs. That link is to an article and video of another “arsenal” seizure in Upper Darby, just outside of Philadelphia. If it wasn’t for the drugs and explosives, the news media wouldn’t have gotten their “Look! Dangerous gun owners!” story. It’s quite possible the drugs were the guy’s tenant, but that’s immaterial if he had functioning explosive devices.

I am disturbed by two things here. One is that apparently being denied entry into the home was grounds for a warrant? I mean, clearly he had something to hide right? So much for the fourth amendment.

The other thing is that he’s being charged under Title 18 Â§ 2716 “Weapons of mass destruction” of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statues. This is a poor drafted law for a number of reasons, first is that it defines biological agent as:

“Biological agent.” A natural or genetically engineered pathogen, toxin, virus, bacteria, prion, fungus or microorganism which causes infections, disease or bodily harm.

Technically it would be illegal to culture strep or staph under this law, which is something labs do all the time. Home brewers can also end up doing it on slants used for culturing brewer’s yeast.

“Nuclear agent.” A radioactive material.

My smoke detector is a weapon of mass destruction under this definition. But I suspect this fellow falls under this definition:

“Bomb.” An explosive device used for unlawful purposes.

If I were this guy, I’d get a good attorney. This is bad law, and I’d like to see it modified. Even though I think the state can make it illegal to house explosives in a residential area, this was a case of the police finding the guy’s guns, and looking for any excuse to charge him with something, because clearly he was a menace to society, or something.

Electoral Roundup

Uncle taunts the Brady Campaign with some electoral facts. Brady is boasting bout 19 out out of 21 candidates in the Virginia House of Delegates winning. It’s easy to increase your electoral success rate if you never take any chances. What they don’t say is that NRA endorsed candidates in The Virginia House won 57 out of 62 seats and in the Senate won 23 out of 27 seats, including the upset of Devolites Davis, and a hearty “screw you” to Bloomberg.

Let’s see… that puts NRA’s winning percentage at 90% in Virgina. Tell me who’s victory this was again? In both raw numbers and in percentage, it looks to me like NRA came out ahead.

I have to hand it to Peter Hamm, he’s good at making an electoral defeat look like a victory.

10/22 PDW

Ahab is building a PDW based on the 10/22 platform.Â I like the .17HM2, personally.Â I had some silhouette shooters tell me they like the high-velocity rimfires because they are flatter shooting than .22LR.

What is National and What is Local

If there’s one thing that really does annoy me in local elections, and Democrats have been particularly guilty of this, is running against the leaders in the national government.Â Eric has a prime example of this.

Note to Democrats: If you tell me that I should vote for your local worms because it will make George W. Bush cry, I will vote for the other guy.Â Well, unless the other guy thinks Pennsylvania is Utah.Â The Republicans managed to retain control of Montgomery County. Maybe that’s because the residents of Montgomery County are more interested in hearing how candidates would run county government,Â and didn’t buy this juvinile attempt to make people think that a vote for their guy is a great way to stick it to George W. Bush.

Gun Owners Who Annoy the NRA

It’s a funny title to an odd blog post. I know a lot of gun owners who are annoyed by the NRA, but not for the reasons Paul would think. I’ve been observing for a while now the Brady’s are starting to understand more of our fault lines in their attempts to divide and conquer. Paul’s latest article would attest to that.

Richard Feldman and Jim Zumbo should start a club.

They could call it, â€œGun Owners Who Annoy The NRA.â€

Except that the whole Jim Zumbo thing was over before NRA really knew what was going on. That was grassroots that did that, not NRA. I’m reminded of the quote from Tam. [UPDATE: More from Ahab here]

I donâ€™t consider the Brady Campaign to be one of the groups described [that would ban guns] in that last comment, but I would like to find common ground with the NRA on ways to make our communities safer. Iâ€™m not sure theyâ€™re interested in such an approach, however.

How about this, Paul. Since your organization isn’t about banning guns, why don’t you join us in getting rid of the ban on firearms in Washington DC? It certainly doesn’t seem to be making Washington DC any safer, except for the criminals. No one is going to take the Brady Campaign seriously about not banning guns as long as they continue to defend…. gun bans. Get it? It’s pretty simple.

Booking Error Makes Teen’s Day

This is a very amusing story out of the UK:

The pupil’s mum had ordered an agency to give her son a “surprise” on his 16th birthday – and the teacher had even agreed to film the prank.

But it all went wrong when the unnamed company sent a stripper dressed as a policewoman instead of a “gorillagram” – in what it called a booking error.

I’m guessing the kid probably isn’t too distraught about the mix up.

Electoral Success in New Jersey

Scott Bach is talking about the results from New Jersey’s election this Tuesday.

And that’s exactly what happened in the 12th district on November 6. Fed up with overzealous legislative attacks, sportsmen and sportswomen turned out in force to register their disapproval with the flip of a voting lever. And register their disapproval they did…

Read the whole thing.Â This is a very positive development.Â I might just have to take New Jersey out of the “lost cause” category.

Crime Guns and Assault Weapons

Uncle links to the top 10 crime guns.Â I’m glad to see criminals are still buying American!Â There’s not a foreign gun on the list.Â Damn patriotic fellows they are eh?

Seriously though, another interesting tidbit was commented on byÂ PN NJ, which is the caliber officers were shot with.Â Rifles by nature will be overrepresented out of proportion to their prevalence in crime because police body armor will typically stop most pistol rounds, but won’t stop rounds fired from a rifle.

In 2006, 46 police officers were killed in the line of duty.Â Thirty six of them were murdered with pistols.Â It’s interesting that the .40 S&W is the largest category.Â Are criminals carrying this more or do .40 S&W rounds have more likelihood to penetrate soft body armor?

The number of officers killed with a rifle were eight.Â Of those, four were with what would normally be classified as an “assault weapon” caliber.Â That’s about 8.6% of officer killings.Â We’ve all heard the VPC/Brady statistics that claimed 20% officers were killed with an assault weapon.Â Even if you look at 1997 through 2006, the number still only rises to 13%, with rifles in total being the 20% figure.Â Overall, handguns were 73% of all casualty figures.Â Prior to the expiration of the assault weapons ban expiration, 14% of officers were shot with calibers that would normally be classified as assault weapon calibers.Â Since the ban has expired in 2004, that number has dropped to 11%.

So it would appear from that data that the best way to protect our nation’s police officers is ensure police departments have sufficient funding for body armor, proper armament and training.Â If the VPC or Brady Campaign want to claim the assault weapons ban mattered, the statistics sure don’t seem to be bear it out.

High School Reading Level

Congratulate yourselves. We’ve advanced beyond the 6th grade reading level most publications go for:

Via Breda