Month: April 2009

Schumer, Gillibrand Want Records

Oh how wrong I turned out to be about Kirsten Gillibrand.  The New York Daily News even notes the flip flopping.  Gillibrand and Schumer want to keep the NICS records for ninety days again, much like they were under Clinton.  This goes to show there are no principles in politics, only interests.  The anti-gun folks downstate managed to threaten her enough to make her think changing positions was the politically smart move.  She very well might be correct in that.  When you boil it down, politicians care about keeping their seats.  Your influence over them comes down to hard political calulations, and if Second Amendment advocates don’t have anything to offer, under the bus they will go.

So Republicans in New York State: you know what to do.  I’d take even Giuliani over this.  At least I know the devil I’m getting with him.  With Gillibrand, it seems we’ll have to keep watching behind us for the knife.

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In the Tank

I love this headline: “Obama aims to cut wasteful spending,” from the LA Times.  What is their shining example of Obama’s self-evidence fiscal responsibility?

The president singled out a move by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to end consulting contracts to create seals and logos that he said had cost the department $3 million since 2003.

Three million?  Wow.  I am in awe of that number.  With a budget deficit projected at 2 trillion dollars for this year, surely the Department of Homeland security having to go without seals will save our children from this massive, crushing debt.

Do we need any more evidence the media is in the tank?  Two trillion dollars.  Think about that number.  It’s 1000 million to get to a billion, and a 1000 billion to get to a trillion.  And we’re not doing that once, but twice.  That’s 2 million times a million dollars.  Nitpicking little items here and there can add up to real money eventually, but it won’t be a drop in the bucket when all is said and done.

I now yearn for the days of the fiscally restrained Bush Administration!

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Interference Bloomberg Style

This New York Times piece shines quite a stunning flashlight at Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-gun operation:

He was arrested in 2005 and accused of using his wife and others as “straw buyers” to acquire more than two dozen sawed-off shotguns, semiautomatic pistols and rifles in Virginia, most of their serial numbers obliterated, and selling them for thousands of dollars in New York City. He faced up to five years in prison if convicted.

What follows is outrageous.  Federal prosecutors wanted to throw the book at this guy.  Bloomberg moved in and cut a deal, and got him off with probation, saying “his cooperation was ‘extraordinary’ and ‘really helpful to the city.'”

So you have a guy the feds managed to catch, who was unambiguously buying guns through a straw purchaser in Virginia, filing the numbers off the gun, and trafficking them illegally up to New York City, and selling them on the streets.  And Bloomberg lets him off with a slap on the wrist?  Why?

Mr. Winfield was no doubt helped by the timing of his case, which occurred as the city was looking for help in two lawsuits it filed in 2006 against more than two dozen gun dealers in Virginia and four other states.

Yep.  Now we know why ATF was pissed at Bloomberg when it happened.  They had an honest to God criminal gun trafficker, and Bloomberg got him off pretty much scott free so he could grandstand in public, crap all over ther rights of businessmen with no connection to his state, and all the while pandering to a fawning media who will congratulate him on doing so much to help rid New Yorkers of the scourge of “illegal guns.”

Well, it looks like the gig is up now.  It’s never been about controlling crime.  It’s about controlling people.  Anyone who says that’s nonsense needs to look no further than Michael Bloomberg.

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Adjusting to a Different Culture

Rachel Lucas seems to be trying to make her way in her new home across the pond, and talks about her impressions in regards to a story circulating of two teenage yobs who attacked a bus driver with knives:

But I don’t know now. I realize I’ve been here less than four weeks but already I’m starting to get a different vibe about this sort of event, and I’m not sure how to articulate it, but it’s something along the lines of: these people are just too nice.

The culture is different. There are a lot of ways to describe it, none of which really nail it for me, but it is different. And until you get to the moment where they’re not doing anything to help during an attack, it’s pretty damn AWESOMELY different. I hesitate to even say that because I know some of my fellow Americans will take offense or take it the wrong way, but the thing is, like I keep saying, the people are are exceedingly polite and I like it a whole lot.

Read the whole thing.  My total experience of the UK was a few days in London, so I can’t claim to be an expert.  But it strikes me as a good example of approaching a foreign culture with an open mind, and a willingness to admit that things aren’t always as simple or as straightforward as we assume them to be.

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Heed Warnings of More Experienced Shooters

This morning and afternoon were the outdoor NRA Air Silhouette matches at our club.  One match in the morning, and one in the afternoon.  Last Saturday, I was at the club looking at some resettable silhouette animals we were considering buying, and adjusted my sights higher.  Rowland, one of our best shooters, advised me, “Better not set those sights in this cold.  When we get out shooting in warmer weather they’ll be off.”   I knew he was right, but readjusted anyway.  I wanted to see if I could land hits on chickens at the ram distance.  With a CO2 gun like mine, the pressure is a function of temperature, so below a certain degree (about 60 F), your point of impact starts dropping, and becomes a bit erratic.  Last Saturday it was 45 degrees, this Saturday it was 65 degrees, with a bit of a head wind.

Come this morning, I went through my first bank of chickens without a hit.  I can have off days, but missing 5 chickens in a row?   Crank the settings back down.  Next bank of chickens.  Miss 5 more.  Blow through 5 pigs without a hit, trying to figure out where I am, crank up, crank down.  Listen for the “tink” of hitting the rail telling me I’m getting close.  Blow through 4 more.  Finally!  I hit one.  I’m in the ball park.  I check on paper a few times on the even relay.  Could be better, but no more mucking around for this match.  Take down 12 turkeys and rams.  Oh well, at least an A score, not a B.

We broke for lunch and I went back to the chickens and got them right where I like them: hold on the leg.  Then back to rams to see where I was on them.  Hold on the back.  Great.  Pigs will be just about where chickens are, and turkeys will be pretty much dead on body hold.  Second match I shot a 33, which is a master score, and the highest score I’ve ever shot with air pistol open sights.  I won 5 dollars for having the highest open sight pistol score.  I won’t complain!

I am currently AAA for outdoor air pistol open sights, but now have one leg up into master.  If I shoot two more master scores, I will be bumped up to master.  It’s always good to have goals, but in trying to achieve them, listen to those who are more experienced.  I could possibly have been a match winner if I hadn’t mucked around with my sites.  We have several master shooters, so those opportunities don’t come around often.  Rowland can typically figure out in a few animals where his sight settings are.  I do not yet have that talent.  For me, I think the best recipe is not to change my settings once I have them, and to check before the match starts.  The last thing you want to be doing is trying to find your sight settings while you lose points in a match!

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Quote of the Day

Dr. Helen says:

I remember a while back, I read in a women’s magazine about political activists who were out “saving the world.” What struck me was something one of the activist’s said: “I found out that me and 25 friends could make a difference in changing politics.” I never forgot that. We often think it takes a big majority of people or a huge group to make a change. I think that’s wrong. Most people don’t care about politics and the truth is you and 25 friends can make a difference.

I know it sounds odd, but it’s true.  In my experience as a “community organizer,” if I had 25 dedicated people in this Congressional District as my volunteers, this would be a far more pro-gun county than it is.  With 25 dedicated people, I’d have something very real and valuable to offer state and local politicians, and even Congressional and National races.  In grassroots political activity, volunteers are very hard to find.  Dedicated volunteers are pure gold.

The politicians know this too.  The biggest thing you can give them (and by converse take away), more than money or your individual vote, is your time.  This is especially true for your state and local level politicians, who depend more on grassroots activity than a federal Congressman or Senator who has money to buy media ads.  But even federal politicians still need volunteers.

With 25 dedicated people, I could easily change the political calculation on guns in this county.  I can say that without a doubt.  That’s why I plead so often for people to volunteer their time.  The things that keep people from volunteering are understandable, namely a lack of time, and because no one really likes politicians all that much.  I don’t really like them either.  But, unfortunately, much like cattle, if you don’t keep them well corralled and under control, they’ll stampede and ruin everything.

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National Park Carry Update

It’s being reported around blogs and in the media that the Obama Administration is not appealing the concealed carry rule injunction issued by a DC District Court earlier in the month.  That doesn’t mean the issue is dead though.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly, who handed down the injunction against implementing the firearms rule change, also granted NRA’s Motion to Intervene, which allows NRA to appeal the ruling independent of the Obama Administration.  That’s not a guarantee that NRA will prevail on appeal, but the issue is not dead, and it’s honestly probably better to have NRA appealing it than the Obama Administration.

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Ed Rendell vs. Wayne LaPierre

On Face the Nation this morning:


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I think Wayne did a reasonable job articulating the issue, though no doubt some will be upset over the reference to Project Exile. But the point was that Ed Rendell won’t really address the fact that the City of Philadelphia does not use the gun laws it already has to lock up violent people who misuse guns. Rendell tries to deflect that by arguing we’ve grown the State’s prison population. Maybe it’s not enough? If you only have room for rapists, armed robbers, and murderers, what good is passing more gun laws going to do if there’s no room in prisons for them?

Ed has an idea though. He wants to make the entire Commonwealth a low grade prison, where he gets to decide which sharp and dangerous objects you “need” and which ones you don’t.

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Tea Party – Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Bitter I attended the Bucks County Tea Party today, in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania.  This is the historic park where Washington is reputed to have crossed the Continental Army across a partially frozen Delaware River in December of 1776, in order to attack a Hessian garrison at Trenton.  A great place for a Tea Party, and a great day for one too.  I’d estimate the crowd on the ground at about 500-600 people, and given that people were coming in and going out the while time, total attendance is probably more like 700 to 800 people.  Not bad for a tax protest in a quiet suburb outside of Philadelphia.

They had several speakers, and a few politicians were brave enough to speak to the crowd. One of them was Scott Petri, the local Republican State Representative. To be honest, I thought his speech was pretty inappropriate for the event. At a protest aimed at big, intrusive and tax hungry government, I’m not looking for a detailed speech on fiscal policy. I want to understand your philosophy, and I want you to signal to me that you get it.

Petri didn’t do that for me.  A bit about how the federal government is creating local budget problems by not paying their fair share for special education prompted one Tea Party goer to shout “Education is not a federal mandate!”  In another sentence he sought more funding for a the park museum.  Absolutely, this is part of the problem.  You can’t argue to cut other people’s pet projects, and then say hands off your own.  You shouldn’t argue that people in places remote to your local community pay for your community’s projects.

I understand the difficulties involved with budgeting, and finding money, especially in poorer communities, but a Tea Party isn’t the place for policy discussions.  It’s the place to show voters you understand them and their concerns, and to set yourself apart from the same old, same old. Scott Petri failed at that.

UPDATE: Dave Markowitz has pictures of the Philadelphia Tea Party on Independence Mall.  Looks like about the same size as ours.

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