2008 – Page 274 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Call Me Ahab Roundup

Ahab has a few good things up today. First, apparently FN is giving away free ammo if you buy a Five-Seven. Good, the ammo for that is frigging expensive and hard to find.

Apparently they are considering a lead ammo ban in Arizona too. They said they were going to try a few months ago after it passed in California. As I said previously, let the condors go extinct already. It’s their time.

In the solutions in search of a problem department, apparently you can get a black powder AR-15 upper in .50 caliber. The cartridge is modified to take a shotgun primer.Â Ut’s the cartridge that’s the ignition source, and gets ejected after the shot is fired. A versatile indeed! I suppose you could go out hunting with it, but I would think you’d be spending a lot of time talking to the game wardens if you head out during muzzle loader season with that rifle :)

Op-Ed Placement

Quite often when you read op-eds in the main stream media, they were actually placed by groups that advocate on behalf of that organization. It’s a dirty little secret in the world of issue advocacy. I would not be shocked to discover that this op-ed was written by Violence Policy Center themselves, or some other issue oriented group. It’s about the decline of the American gun culture:

According to Sugarmann, those keeping the culture alive and those most vocal in resisting tighter regulations are white, middle-aged men whose enthusiasm for firearms, hunting and shooting is not shared by younger Americans.

I’m a white guy, last I checked, but I hope not middle aged; I don’t plan to die in my 60s. I’ve been advocating for this issue since I was a teenager in some form or another. In fact, most of my fellow bloggers are my age, or close to my age, and I can name more than a few who are younger than me.Â Oh yeah, and half the bloggers I linked to there are women.

Politicians tend to pander to the NRA, some more shamelessly than others. One of the Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential race, Mitt Romney, went so far as to falsely claim that he was a lifelong hunter and had received an official NRA endorsement in 2002.

Now we get to the heart of this article, the National Rifle Association. Op-eds like this serve one purpose, to forward rhetoric designed to weaken and trivialize the power of the organization. Maybe Bernd Debusmann is a coy political operative, but something about this op-ed just seems too well crafted. If it is Mr. Debusmann, my hats off to him; it’s shrewdly political, but I’d put my money on this being an op-ed placement by an issue group out to damage the NRA.

Dangers of Compromise

Joe has an excellent post that highlights a real danger in making deals with the likes of the Brady Campaign, such as happened on HR2640, which was signed into law yesterday.Â The passage of HR2640 raises the political capital of the Brady Campaign, and other anti-gun forces, because they were able to claim victory.Â They are naturally going to want to spend that capital to push for more gun control.

This was always a legitimate reason for opposing HR2640, but it wasn’t an argument that was sensibly made by certain other pro-gun groups.Â I still think the deal was worth making, because we weren’t going to get those concessions out of this Congress otherwise, and the amount their political capital has been raised is a lot less than their rhetoric is indicating.

There will be no serious move on gun control in Congress until after the elections.Â If the anti-gun Democrats cement their hold on power in 2008, we’re in a lot of trouble, especially if the White House has Obama or Clinton in it.Â We’re in a lot of trouble.Â Â That will have little to do with HR2640 though, and a lot more to do with the fact that elections matter.Â That’s why 2008 is so important for us.

Victory Tears

TD notices that polling shows Hillary’s tears yesterday seems to have really helped her among women, and opines “Why are you people allowed to vote, again?”Â I think he means Democrats rather than women, but I have to tell you, I have no faith in the future of this country if this is what we base our voting decisions on.

What have we become?

Quote of the Day

From Countertop:

There are lots of reasons for the Republicanâ€™s defeat. Some real (they lost their way, they renegged on term limit pledges, Schiavo, runaway earmarks) Some false (Iraq) but one thing which really did drive them to lose, and I have no doubt, is the shit thats peddled on Fox News. If you donâ€™t listen to anything else I ever write, just remember this – Fox News (or at least their prime time â€œpolitical debateâ€ programs) are about the least intellectual thing on TV. I canâ€™t think of a worst example of folks without a clue of how D.C. works or whats actually going on around here actually fooling people into paying attention to their contrived talking points.

Interesting theory, but I’m curious as to how exactly this has hurt the Republicans? I agree completely with his statement here, but don’t quite make the connection to electoral failure. My first choice for where to lay blame would be evangelical voters who think as long as a guy loves Jesus, he’s OK by them.

Turning the Corner on Guns

Paul Helmke says that America is Turning the Corner on the gun issue.Â Â My response to Paul:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpf9bP6xdaI[/youtube]

Victimized Twice Law Appears in Maryland

Because one-gun-a-month apparently didn’t do much for Baltimore’s stratospheric violent crime rate, the City is going back to the Legislature for more:

Dixon also wants to require gun owners to report lost or stolen guns within 72 hours of discovering their disappearance or face misdemeanor criminal charges. The idea is to allow prosecutors to punish people who are careless with their weapons or knowingly loan them out for nefarious purposes.

“All too often we trace guns used in horrible crimes back to owners who claim their guns were stolen,” Dixon said.

Let me paraphrase this, so you know what they really mean:

Dixon also wants to require gun owners to report lost or stolen guns within 72 hours of discovering their disappearance or face misdemeanor criminal charges. The idea is to allow prosecutors to punish people who ~~are careless with their weapons~~ own a gun ~~or knowingly loan them out~~ because the only reason for owning them is for nefarious purposes.

“All too often we trace guns used in horrible crimes back to owners who claim their guns were stolen,” Dixon said, “Pretty clearly anyone who claims their gun was stolen is a liar and should go to jail.”

Yeah, that’s I think a bit closer to what they would say behind your back. Ignorance of the law is no defense for this “crime”. It will result in perfectly law abiding people ending up in jail, which is exactly the point.

UPDATE: David Codrea makes the point:

And, of course, you canâ€™t compel a criminalâ€“you know, the folks causing all the problemsâ€“ to report his gun lost or stolen, because that would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self -incrimination.

True.Â War on Guns has been pointing out that angle for a while, and I was remiss not to mention that here.

Change Won!

The great thing about the Democratic Primary, no matter who wins, change won.Â Both Hillary and Obama are now touting themselves as the candidates of change.Â Â I’m just wondering how long it takes for people to take a serious look and realize that both candidates are peddling the same socialist gift basket the Democrats have been trying to push on us since the 1960s.

Go McCain!?!?

John McCain sucks, which is why when I found myself rather happy that he won New Hampshire, rather than Mr. Satan Hair, I soon had to ask myself what this country is coming to, that I’m now happy a man I said I’d never vote for is poised to make a come back. But yeah, I’ll get on the McCain Train if the alternative is Romney or Mr. Jesus Preacher.

You can stick a fork in Fred folks. I say that because New Hampshire voters should have been receptive to his ideas, and it’s not like he ignored the state like Rudy did. Countertop isn’t feeling it for Fred either anymore:

Its sad. Iâ€™ve tried hard, I wasted money, Iâ€™ve reached out to folks at all levels of his campaign (from Chief of Staff and Press Secretary to former hill staffers, law partners, neighbors, etc) and Iâ€™ve been unable to get past any â€œinitial enthusiasm.â€

Its a scam. As if he signed all these people up and assumed they would work with no direction.

We are electing a leader, if he wants it, Thompson needs to lead

It’s a legitimate criticism. I like Thompson’s philosophy on government, a lot, but it won’t make a whit of difference if he can’t get his act together. My fear at this point is the non-evangelical faction of the Republican Party fractures on multiple candidates, and hands the nomination to Huckabee, who has evangelicals locked up.

I think the more libertarian leaning factions of the Republican coalition need to start thinking about getting behind a single candidate, otherwise we might hand the nomination to Huckleberry.

Gun Bills Passed In New Jersey

The gun bills passed in New Jersey, unfortunately.Â But ANJRPC and NRA worked very hard to make them less awful then they were in the original version.Â That’s probably the best that can be hoped for in New Jersey.Â Â I’m hearing Corzine signed it.