The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0297_ha8zXE[/youtube]
Time has posted fond farewells for 2008, and number 17 is Charlton Heston. However, the writer seems confused:
Offscreen, Heston was a figure of epic contradictions. In the ’60s he marched with Martin Luther King; in the ’90s he headed the National Rifle Association.
There’s nothing contradictory about civil rights work.
Other bloggers review their best stories for the year. I choose to satisfy my inner traffic whore and look at my traffic stats for the year. The numbers look a hell of a lot better than my 401k which kind of looks like this, only with a negative slope:
Thank you to all my readers, and I hope you have a great New Years celebration.
Firearms and Freedom has a post that shows at least some schools aren’t taking zero tolerance thing too terribly serious. That said, you should know where your guns are.
Apparently despite originally being Chicago Public School’s superintendent, he also does a lot of anti-gun activism on the side. Thank God the federal governments limited and enumerated powers don’t include education! (*smirk* I can’t even say that with a straight face) Apparently Chicago Public Schools also have a 51% graduation rate. That’s almost as much fun as Bill “The Education President” Clinton taking Arkansas from 49th in the nation to 47th.
This “documentary” by The Discovery Channel is why I don’t watch the Discovery Channel anymore. When it first came on the air years ago, it was worth watching. Then it went into all natural disasters, all the time mode. Now it has maybe one show that I would think about watching.
Bitter and I plan to drop cable service shortly. It’s horrendously expensive for digital HD, and we hardly watch it. I’d rather save the money and spend it on ammunition, which is more entertaining for me than sitting in front of the boob tube watching overpriced, bad cable programming.
The Brady Campaign has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to enjoin the Department of Interior from changing its rules to allow concealed carry in National Parks.
The rule will allow guns in rural and urban national park areas around the country, from Wyoming’s Yellowstone and California’s Yosemite to Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell. The suit was filed on behalf of the Brady Campaign and its members, including school teachers in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas who are canceling or curtailing school trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. now that the Bush Administration will be allowing guns in these national park areas.
Carrying firearms is still prohibited on the National Mall and at Ellis Island, because the states they are in prohibit carrying of firearms. Hell, even Independence Hall in Philadelphia will still be off limits, because while Pennsylvania allows for licensed concealed carry, access to Independence National Historical Park is through a a federal facility, where guns are still illegal. This is fear mongering, pure and simple. As usual with the Brady folks, these claims are patently false.
UPDATE: Dave Hardy, who worked in the DOI Solicitor’s office as an attorney for a number of years, has some thoughts on this as well.
NSSF has asked us to make at least one New Years resolution to take a new shooter to the range, and Caleb takes it one step further.
Cemetery finds some more PSH from the media over in New Jersey on .50 caliber rifles.
UPDATE: Looks like they are increasing the penalties for machine gun posesssion too. If at first you don’t succeed, try again, this time with more enthusiasm!
Looks like the Pennsylvania cell phone ban bill is back:
Democratic state Rep. Josh Shapiro plans to reintroduce his bill to outlaw handheld phones while driving.
For Josh Shapiro, the numbers tell the story.
Last year, according to the state police, there were 1,245 accidents on Pennsylvania’s roadways where a driver was talking on a handheld cell phone, compared to 56 accidents with a driver using a hands-free device.
In 2006, the totals were eerily similar: 1,241 crashes with handheld phones; 60 with hands-free.
Shapiro, a Democratic state representative from the 153rd District, which includes most of Abington and part of Upper Dublin, wants to make it illegal to drive while talking on a handheld cell phone.
Just to give reader some sense of scale here, there were 6,657 crashes involving heavy trucks in Pennsylvania in 2006, 4,763 accidents involving pedestrians and 3,889 motorcycle accidents. Even bicycle accidents are higher. On the scale of vehicular dangers Pennsylvanians face, this is a small one. We have accepted in Pennsylvania that motorcyclist deserve to have the freedom to choose not to wear a helmet, even though this is shown to make our highways more dangerous. I think people should have to freedom to responsible use a cell phone while driving. Distracted and careless driving is already a crime in most states. At the very most, cell phone use while driving should be a secondary offense.