December 2007 – Page 2 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Late to the Party

Bitter and I were off driving around in the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina today, with much getting rained on, so I will have to do a roundup of what other people have posted on the topic of our friend, and troll, CeaseFire Pennsylvania Board Member, Alex Tristan Riley. What these bloggers have gathered is very circumstantial, and we can’t conclusively prove these allegations, because Alex has done an effective job of erasing his past by removing all the blog work he has done. It’s all gone down the memory hole.

War on Guns posts an example of this juvenile satire, posted under the pseudonym NRAfourever. Someone using that Pseudonym has also in the past run a blog, a screens shot of which is showing below:

Rob Allen does the best job of presenting the evidence he has that Alexander Tristan Riley, Culturologist, and NRAFourever are quite probably the same person. Thirdpower backs it up with some more.

You might not be able to take it to court, but judge for yourself whether or not you think they are the same person. All the former blog efforts have now been removed, since Alex accepted his position on CeaseFire Pennsylvania’s Board of Directors.

UPDATE: Armed and Safe has more.

Our Friends at ATF

Looks like they’ve been busy.Â Joe says they are misleading the public on several fronts with a story he points to.Â Agents also appear to be harassing homeowners who lawfully store things that can go bang in their garages.Â Let’s not forget Bill Akins either.

Evan Nappen on HR2640 Passage

Evan Nappen has another editorial defending against attacks by folks less than happy with the passage of HR2640. For those of you who don’t know, Evan is probably the foremost legal expert on New Jersey’s gun laws; not a simple task, they are monstrously complicated, and even the lawmakers don’t really understand that body of law.

Improving Georgia’s Carry Laws

As I’ve said before, I generally find myself being the damned yankee that complains about restrictive carry laws in The South, particularly in the onerous number of “off limits” places.Â Georgia is looking to remedy that with HB 915:

GCO fully supports the Second Amendment Protection Act of 2008, introduced today by Rep. Timothy Bearden, D. 68.Â Â GCOâ€™s top legislative priority for 2008 is the passage of HB 915.

Do you know:

Georgia has more places off limits to carrying a firearm than California. In fact, Georgia has more places off limits to carry than any state in the nation. Shocked, surprised, disgusted?Â Fed up? Finally ready to do something about it?

Sounds good to me.Â Now if we can pass this, maybe we can convince Tennessee to ditch carry restrictions on federal lands, and state parks. Â Same for Florida too, for that matter.

Conservative Sacalawag [wants to know where the NRA is with all of this]*.Â I would imagine they’d be behind lifting carry restrictions, as they have been in many other states, but I suspect we’ll see more movement on this after the holidays.

* Link dead

Blogging Today

Bitter and I are headed out into the wilderness today to spend some time in the mountains of North Carolina, before headed west to hang out with the Knoxville gang tomorrow.Â As far as I know, I’ll be meeting such fine folks as Les Jones and Tam, who we missed last time we passed through.Â I think Glenn and Helen are planning to be there too.Â They were kind enough to buy us lunch when we passed through last March.Â Hopefully this time I’ll manage to say more than 10 words the entire time, now that I don’t feel as much like a newbie to this whole blogging scene.

Needless to say, posting might be a bit scarce tomorrow and Saturday, so I’m going to open up to my friend Brad and Ahab to post one or two things if they feel like it, to keep people interested.

Resolved: John Mashek is Clueless

John Mashek has published his new years resolutions, among them:

I resolve to continue to jump all over the National Rifle Association and its unwillingness to compromise on anything.

Perhaps Mr. Mashek is completely blind that he is not aware of this. Or perhaps Mr. Mashek is simply unaware that the very existence of NICS was a compromise that gun owners made in the early 90s to avoid waiting periods and ineffective background checks run, or not run, depending on their mood that day, by local police.

John Mashek’s problem is not that the NRA doesn’t compromise; clearly it does, and it’s taken a lot of heat from membership for doing so.Â John Mashek’s problem is that the NRA won’t become a party to his desire to crap all over the Bill of Rights.

One wonders whether John Mashek would be willing to add to his list of resolutions “I resolve to respect the Bill of Rights in its entirety, and agree to support other citizen’s second amendment rights as actively as I defend my profession’s first amendment rights.”Â I doubt you’ll see him resolving that.

Virginia Speeding Shenanigans

Bitter is too busy to blog about Dave Albo’s latest attempt to stick it to the citizens of Virginia, but I’m glad TD did.Â It needs to be told.

Pennsylvania, Sportsmens Paradise

It’s Louisiana’s moniker, but we pretty impressively rank:

Texas may have more hunters and anglers than Pennsylvania, and Texans may spend more money on their outdoor pursuits, but Keystone State hunters spend more days hunting than those in any other state.

A study released last week by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Congressional Sportsmenâ€™s Foundation ranks Pennsylvania among the top five states in all five hunting-related categories.

That includes first for days afield (16 million), second for number of resident hunters (933,000), spending ($1.7 billion) and hunting-related jobs (28,000), and fourth for number of out-of-state hunters (111,000).

When the stateâ€™s 830,000 anglers are added to the mix, Pennsylvania ranks fifth in the country in total number of resident sportsmen with 1.4 million, following Texas (2.6 million), Florida (2 million), California (1.7 million) and Ohio (1.48 million).

And the folks in Philadelphia would be happy to throw it all away for the sake of looking like they are doing something about violence in Philadelphia, instead if, you know, doing something.

Civilian KRISS?

Check this out:

To reach the civilian market, the company developed the .45-caliber carbine. Plans call for marketing it primarily to shooting enthusiasts who would use it for competitions and target practice, but it also could be used for hunting.

“This is not going to be a gun for everyone,” Kushell said.

Company officials said the Super V mechanism can be adapted to any caliber weapon. Work currently is under way on a 12-gauge shotgun.

I’m not a huge fan of pistol caliber carbines, but I’d definitely pick up one of these.Â Clearly TDI thinks more highly of the civilian market than H&K, and I hope sales of their civilian line of firearms is brisk.

Philly Homicide Rate

Despite all the hewing and hawing that the city needs gun control in order to get control of its skyrocketing homicide rate, it is actually on par to drop 3% in 2007. That’s not to say there’s nothing to worry about; this is still way too high. But notice this:

And what does Mooney attribute this 3% drop to?

“I think with the difference this year; you have to give credit to increased community awareness and involvement in the violence.”

John Appledorn of Citizens Crime Commission whole-heartedly agrees:

“Basically what you have is that people are fed up. They are sick and tired of the criminals running this community. They’re getting away with murder, they are terrorizing people and they are going to make that phone call and get them off the street.”

Appledorn says the Citizens Crime Commission has helped police with tips on cases from graffiti to murder. That number is 215-546-TIPS.

So communities being more willing to work with police can make a difference? I’m shocked, really.