John Lott asks why Ashley Judd wants wolves to starve to death. Too many of us have lost touch with our evolutionary role as an apex predator. In regards to the Bathroom Baboon, TD of the Unforgiving Minute passed this interesting bit to me in regards to predatory behavior of Baboons in Africa, and one outfitter’s war against a tribe that attacked a woman and killed her baby.
Month: February 2009
3 Plinkers Charged in New Jersey
I am not going to defend these three gentlemen’s judgment, because if you look at the satellite photo, you will notice they were not exactly shooting in a deserted area. In Pennsylvania, this would justifiably get you a few misdemeanor charges, from violating a municipal discharge ordinance, disorderly conduct, and maybe if the prosecutor has a real beef with the circumstances, reckless endangerment.
But they are being charged with weapons offenses in New Jersey, particularly unlawful possession of a handgun. This can be as simple as the kid taking his father’s pistol out to the woods in New Jersey. It can even be as simple as the owner handing it off to a friend to shoot. These are felonies, and they will be treated no different than gang members, rapists, or murderers by New Jersey’s criminal justice system, and from this point forward, their young lives will be completely ruined. With felony records, they will be ineligible for many jobs, will be unable to serve in the military, and have almost no chance of getting their records cleared. Most definitely they will never legally own a firearm.
I do think shooting a firearm off in a populated area like Cinnaminson shows a severe lack of judgement, and it is rightful for society to criminalize such errors of judgement, but the punishment does not fit the crime here. This is, at best, a misdemeanor. This is “reasonable” gun control the Philadelphia media says we should adopt on this side of the river. No thanks.
Back Challengers Early
This site argues that the time to start backing challengers in the 2010 election is now:
Early funding also has a snowball effect — since people usually don’t want to throw their money away, they’ll generally only support a candidate who seems to have a chance to win. Before insurgent candidates can get much outside attention, they have to hit a threshold of support that indicates that they’re a serious contender. They have to have enough of SOMETHING — money, polling numbers or on-the-ground organization — to convince outsiders to get involved. And without resources and expertise available early, many candidates who might actually have a shot if given a chance never quite hit the mark. A handful of paid staff, or even just ONE paid staffer, can create the relationships and the organization that a campaign needs to prove viability, while also getting the structure in place to actually take real advantage of any money that floods in at the last minute.
I agree with this completely. Read the whole thing. Unfortunately, I don’t get the impression the GOP in my district is floating a challenger to Murphy yet. Hopefully they won’t wait until it’s too late.
Discharge of Firearm Ordinance Being Challenged
Many Pennsylvania municipalities regulate the discharge of firearms. The language of our state’s preemption law would seem to allow this, but it’s never been abundantly clear. Now someone is challenging the City of Lancaster’s ordinance regarding discharge of firearms:
Swinton said his cousin was being attacked and beaten by a group of assailants and that he fired a warning shot to disperse them. He had a concealed-carry permit for the gun.
Police charged Swinton with reckless endangerment and illegal discharge of a firearm. The latter is a crime under an ordinance that City Council strengthened in 2007 at the urging of Mayor Rick Gray. Each shot — even a blank — is a separate offense and can result in a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Swinton is the first person to be charged under the amended ordinance.
State law gives a person the right to fire a gun if he or she believes another person is in imminent threat of serious harm, Crystle said. The city ordinance, in contrast, says shooting is justified only in defense of one’s home, business or “human life.” The city can’t deny a right to Swinton that he has under state law, Crystle said.
My feeling is there has to be a self-defense exception to these ordinances, otherwise it would appear to fly in the face of state law and the state constitution. If the ordinances aren’t written in that manner, than I have no problems with the court creating an exception.
This does, however, speak to relative legal hazard created when warning shots are used. I’m not a fan of them.
Tough Battle on Restaurant Carry in Virginia
It’s hard to win on gun rights when the media just flat out refuses to characterize your issue properly. Virginia is considering a bill, which is eminently reasonable, that will allow concealed carry license holder to carry in restaurants licensed to serve alcohol provided they do not consume any. Here’s how the Roanoke Times characterizes it:
The Senate last week passed a bill, with the help of Roanoke’s Sens. John Edwards and Ralph Smith, that would allow those with permits to carry concealed guns into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.
They must tell a designated employee they’re packing, and they must abstain from drinking or risk a misdemeanor. But who would be the wiser?
We don’t think guns and booze belong in the same building and support those establishments that ban any and all weapons from their premises. But at least with open carry, there is transparency about who is and who is not toting a weapon to happy hour.
How much more transparent can you get than having to go up and tell someone at the restaurant you’re packing heat? This is about as transparent as you can get. It’s ridiculously transparent, in fact, given that I would never have to do such a thing in most other states. The Roanoke Times doesn’t even consider the alternative is people leaving loaded firearms in cars where they could be stolen. But their coverage is at least better than the New York Times, which says:
The Senate’s retreat from gun controls was compounded by its repeal of another worthy Kaine priority — a ban on people swaggering into bars with concealed weapons and make-my-day fantasies.
Yeah, because that’s exactly the bill that’s being proposed. And they wonder why they are going down the crapper.
NRA Board Endorsements Coming Soon
Bitter and I are going to continue our tradition of issuing endorsements for candidates for NRA Board of Directors. For those of you who are voting NRA members (Life member or higher, or people who have 5 unbroken years of annual NRA membership), you will soon begin receiving your ballots in your next copy of your magazine.
Why have endorsements? Because I’ve long been an advocate of bloggers having a voice at NRA, and one opportunity the NRA offers for having that voice is to vote for board members. We need people who share the views of the blogging community, share our outlooks, and who are willing to listen to us, and take us seriously. Often times that’s hard to know from the biographies in the magazine, which are always going to be favorable, because those are the people the nominating committee want to see elected.
We have endorsed six people for the board this year. That’s not to say there aren’t other people who have been nominated who are not worthy. These are candidates we have a good feeling about, or that we know personally. What we look for in board members are people who are going to be engaged members. I don’t want people who will just be a rubber stamp, will merely follow the herd, or will enjoy the title of the office without contributing much to it. But by the same token, I’m not looking for gratuitous pot stirrers, people who will be a pain in the ass, make the organization look bad, or make life unreasonably difficult for NRA staff.
I am going to endeavor to bring you more than just “Vote for this person, because I say they are worthy.” We are going to line up interviews with some of our endorsed candidates, so readers can judge for themselves. We will announce the endorsed candidates later in the week. In the mean time, I will be posting a bit on the role of the board, how NRA elections work, and more on why blogs should have a role to play in this process, particularly in bringing better information to voting NRA members about the people they are being asked to vote for.
A Good Weekend for NRA
Bitter and I were manning the NRA-ILA table in the NRA booth at the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show this weekend. It wasn’t a bad weekend for NRA. Bitter and I signed up or renewed about 16 NRA members ourselves, but we were only taking overflow from the membership tables when the two full time staffers and two volunteers were too busy signing up other people to take any more. We were there for ILA, and were trying to hand out political alerts, answer questions, and sign up potential volunteers.
NRA’s whole operation over the weekend did more than 600 new, upgraded or renewed NRA members. This is at a show that most definitely favors hunters and anglers, so never let it be said that hunters are completely apathetic about their right to bear arms. The show runs through next weekend, and we’ll be there working the booths next Saturday and Sunday as well.
Hopefully next weekend I’ll get more of a chance to look around.
Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show
Bitter and I will be helping with the NRA table at the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show tomorrow in Harrisburg, at the State Farm Show Complex. If you’ve never been to the show, I’m told it’s quite good. It’ll be the first time I’ve gone, so I’ll have to take Bitter’s word for it.  If you’re there, we’ll be at the NRA table in the afternoon. Feel free to stop by and say hi.
Amicus Briefs Filed in Chicago Case
Today, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Independence Institute on behalf of a coalition of law enforcement organizations, Institute for Justice, the Constitutional Accountability Center on behalf of constitutional law professors, and 70 state legislators from Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin submitted amicus curiae briefs in support of National Rifle Association’s (NRA) appeal of the City of Chicago and the Village of Oak Park’s unconstitutional bans on handguns.
I anxiously await the Brady amicus brief. As Dave Hardy pointed out, if Heller is such a great thing because it takes the fear of a total ban off the table, and open the possibility gun owners will accept more reasonable gun control laws, then incorporating Heller should be 50x better!
City of San Francisco Donates $380,000 to Gun Rights
I would like to wholeheartedly thank the City of San Francisco for making such a large and generous donation to the National Rifle Association, and other gun rights groups. This is most certainly a welcome development in the history of the gun rights movement, and we look forward to donations from other stellar, first class cities such as Chicago, Alameda, and New York City sometime in the not to distant future.
These funds are certainly important to continued advancement of this important civil right, and we are grateful to the City of San Francisco for helping us out.