Apparently it’s illegal to collect rain water in some western states without difficult to obtain water rights for doing so. There’s a saying from the west that I believe goes something like “Out west, whiskey is for drinkin’ and water is for fightin’.” Things like that don’t really change, though presumably we fight using lawyers these days rather than guns.
Month: November 2008
Heard in Our Gun Nutty Household …
Bitter: “Umm… there’s ammunition under the microwave.”
Sebastian: “What caliber?”
Bitter takes a pen and sweeps it out from under the microwave. Turns out it was a piece of expended ICC brass from Blackwater. Must have gotten away from me when I was using the kitchen sink to clean all the dirt out of the brass I picked up before tumbling it.
Now Begins Thanksgiving Vacation
I am taking this entire week off. Rather than have to deal with my project and task lists at work, I can concentrate on fun vacation activity:
- Cleaning the leaves off the lawn. I have too many trees.
- Avoid shaving as much as possible.
- Finish scores for the Gun Blog Rifle League, and make the combined Fall/Winter match.
- Work up a load for .223 using Varget powder, and get down to the club to crony it.
- Reload some .44 Special so I can practice for my IHMSA match on the 6th of December. It’ll be our last one until March.
- Get the Lee progressive press a reader was kind of enough to send to me up and functioning and start reloading 9mm and .45 ACP all quick like. I ordered all I need to reload .44 Spl/Mag too, in addition to the .223 stuff. We’ll see how it works out.
- Clean the house for Thanksgiving guests. Sadly this is a big task.
- Buy a new and larger gun safe, with fireproofing, and all that happy stuff. My current one is packed to the gills, and I’d like to get some more collector pieces before imports end up more restricted.
- Think about buying a Glock 30 to replace the Glock 19 as primary carry piece. The reason I went with 9mm is because it’s common and cheap, but if I’m reloading, I can afford to shoot .45ACP pretty regularly.
That’s basically my holiday plans for my week off. I will be blogging, but possibly on a different schedule than normal.
To Kill a Turkey
I think MS-NBC wants me to frown on Sarah Palin for not having a problem with the backdrop for her interview, but I agree with Breda that it makes her just that much more awesome.
Outrageous
A British couple gets arrested for possession of a suppressor.  The proper thing for the AUSA to do here is to exercise discretion and not bring charges. A grand jury should refuse to indict. These aren’t people who belong in jail.
I’d say they’d make a great Second Amendment case in order to chip off part of the National Firearms Act, but their not being American citizens would needlessly complicate things.
Does anyone from the Brady Campaign want to come on and defend this application of our “reasonable common sense gun laws?”
Turncoating
We’ve had a few responses to Bill Schneider’s column in The New West. First, at The Ten Ring. Ride Fast also has a pretty good fisking of it. Bill is actually someone I wouldn’t mind having a debate with, because I’d really like to understand his thinking. I mean, I get that some people aren’t single issue gun voters. What I don’t get is why guys like Schneider deride the voting choices of people who do feel that way.
It’s Bill Schneider’s right to think the Second Amendment is not important. That is what he is saying, despite what he says. When you aren’t voting on it, that means it’s not that important to you, and if you voted for Barack Obama, you voted against the Second Amendment. Here’s Schneider’s conclusion:
Don’t alienate the majority of gun owners. Don’t automatically dismiss gun owners with sincere suggestions because they don’t perfectly match your doctrine. Don’t instantly shoot this commentary full of freedom holes, which I’m sure you can do, at least until you think about it. Have you just read a mainstream strategy for growing the constituency willing to help you protect our right to bear arms?
I have. I’ve thought about it a lot Bill. But how do I build a coalition with someone like yourself who is not willing to actually do the things necessary to preserve it? I mean, pretty clearly we agree on some things, especially if you think there shouldn’t be a new Assault Weapons Ban. But you voted for a guy who advocates passing exactly that. How do I build a coalition with you if you vote against our interests? I’d really like to understand that.
A Sorry Testament
Cam Edwards points out a sorry testament to the state of education in this country.
More on Holder
If this is how Barack Obama respects the Second Amendment, I’d sure hate to see how he’d disrespect it. I suspect that would involve a trip to the National Archives, a match, and some lighter fluid.
I Do Not Think This Poll Means What You Think it Means
Paul Helmke is busy trying to deride the NRA’s influence in national elections:
— 79% of all voters say the views of the NRA were not important to their vote for President; 78% of “New Blue” state respondents agreed; 74% of gun owning voters agreed.
Well, you see, that means that 21% of voters say that the views of the NRA are important. Can you name me one other interest group that can lay claim to influencing 27 million voters in an election? Have the Brady Campaign conducted a poll to see what percentage of the electorate consider their views important? If they started wrapping their heads around that inconvenient fact, they’d start to understand why Barack Obama felt the need to convince everyone how much he respected the Second Amendment.
Gambling Big
Janet Napolitano gets tapped for Homeland Security. Now Kathy Sibelius for Labor Secretary. There are rumors of either Hillary Clinton or Bill Richardson at State. So we could be going forward with a lot of up-and-coming Democrats manning the decks on the U.S.S. Obama. This works out well for the Democrats if the ship turns out to be seaworthy, but it could be a godsend to the Republicans if it sinks in the harbor.