Wyatt is once more a father, and Clayton Cramer is now a grandfather. Congrats to both.
Month: December 2008
Stay Classy Ed
I can’t believe we elected this guy … twice.
Statement from Remington
Over at War on Guns. I think that response might be from Tommy Millner, who is the CEO. I’m glad to hear Remington will be applying pressure where pressure is due. We have still heard nothing from H-S Precision.
One-Gun-A-Month in New Jersey
It’s up for a committe vote in New Jersey on December 8th. Scott Bach has this to say:
Unfortunately, a bill pending in the State Senate and up for committee vote 12/8 (S1774) is a bad dose of old medicine. It’s a proposal to ration the Constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to own handguns beyond the existing regulatory thicket, which already slows exercise of those rights to a trickle. It ignores violent behavior and known sources of illegal trafficking, instead restricting only persons investigated and pre-certified as acceptable to own firearms. Even mainstream media recognize the ineffectiveness of this approach.
He goes on to describe how utterly worthless this law is going to be in light of New Jersey’s requirements to even purchase a firearm. Bryan Miller is pushing for this law just because he can. No sane person believes that criminals are following New Jersey’s draconian gun regulations to get guns, rather than buying them on the street.
Sound Gun Control Laws
Eugene Volokh offers some excellent criticism to the New York Times for the Brady Campaign inspired editorial from yesterday. I don’t think they really want to get into specifics too much at this point. They are mostly interested in getting the public used to hearing “reasonable” and “gun laws” in the same sentence, in the hopes that they’ll, by default, assume that all gun control laws are reasonable. The real sorry side to this story is that the New York Times chooses to do the heavy lifting for The Brady Campaign, rather than seriously think about the issues.
Hoisted on their Own Petard
I just got word from Matt Carmel, inventor of the Palm Pistol:
I thought you might be interested to learn that the FDA has completed its “Device/Not a Device” determination and concluded the Palm Pistol will be listed as a Class I Medical Device, exempt from 510(k) Pre-Market Notification in accordance with 21 CFR 890.5050 “Daily Activity Assist Device.”
I have now submitted an application to the CMS contractor Noridian for a DME (Durable Medical Equipment) Coding Verification in order to be assigned an HCPCS code. Once assigned , physicians will be able to prescribe the Palm Pistol for qualified patients who may seek reimbursement through Medicare or private health insurance companies.
Matt seems pretty confident that he’ll be able to get medicare to reemurse patients for the Palm Pistol:
All the “experts” said the Palm Pistol would be AOW and I proved them wrong. All the “experts” said the Palm Pistol would never be classified as a medical device by FDA and I proved them wrong. Now all the experts are saying there is no way this will be reimbursable under Medicare. Well, we shall see about that!
Go Matt! I love troublemakers, especially ones that create headaches for federal bureaucrats. The progressives created this system, and now we have hijacked it to help people buy guns! Matt has hoisted them on their own petard. This is the kind of creative thinking our movement needs.
Mr. Completely Still Having Problems
This is really bad news. Thoughts and Prayers from us all. Let’s hope he’ll be on the mend soon.
New DC Gun Law
Looks like DC is, once again, doing its level best to skirt the Supreme Court’s ruling in Heller:
The D.C. Council voted unanimously yesterday to give preliminary approval to legislation that would require gun owners to renew their registrations every three years and to notify police annually whether they still own guns.
The Fire Arms Registration Amendment, which would also ban assault weapons, was described as building on legislation passed by the council in September to adhere to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the city’s 32-year handgun ban.
The new legislation also mandates Microstamping, a practice that’s not common in the firearms industry. It also requires training, submission to a background check every six years. It also bans any unsafe handgun — whatever that means.
What the Chambliss Victory Means
Saxby Chambliss received 49.8% of the vote on November 4th. His Democratic rival, Jim Martin, received 46.8%, with 3.4% going to the Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley. Last night was the runoff election between Chambliss and Martin, which both sides dumped a lot of resources into, including NRA into helping Chambliss retain his Senate seat. Chambliss defeated Martin 57.4% to 42.6%. Between November and now, he increased his lead by 13 percentage points to sail to re-election in a landslide victory.
Aside from preserving a filibuster for Republicans, it will also serve as a warning to Democrats that their victory may be a lot more pyrrhic than they might like to imagine. Without Obama’s coattails to ride in the midterm election, Democrats might find themselves in serious trouble in 2010 if they overreach. The Republican Party is down, but not out, and Pelosi, Reid and Obama govern to the left at their peril. A third effect this will likely have is to decrease the likelihood the Democrats will up the ante in the Coleman/Franken election, since with Chambliss’ victory, it doesn’t matter as much now.
This is a good victory. A shot across the bow of the Democrats from the people of Georgia. We are down, but not out. On to 2010.
Now We’re Heroin Addicts
Remember Tonya Paine? Well, now we suburbanite gun owners need to be reigned in because we can’t stop ourselves from coming into their fair city to trade our guns for smack:
“We have a lot of suburbanites that come into this city carrying their arms and they trade them off for these stamp bags of heroin,” said Payne. “Let’s call a spade a spade. People don’t want to hear the truth.”
I’ve never even seen a stamp bag of herion, let alone ever traded a gun for one. I mean, accusing people of not wanting to hear the truth? Pot, meet kettle.