The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
The Bradys, borrowing a tactic from the porn industry, have chosen to characterize denying fundamental constitutional rights to 18 to 21 year olds as “dangerous and reckless” to assert that “teenagers should be allowed to carry loaded semiautomatic weapons on our streets and playgrounds.”
Why not? We let them carry fully automatic weapons on the streets and playgrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan, don’t we?
Fresh off of blaming honest gun owners for the first death of a Game Warden in a century, the Inquirer pleads with Ed Rendell to veto castle doctrine, lest we make “the state more dangerous by allowing gun owners to blast away if they feel threatened outside their home or even in their car.” Can you feel the love? Much like Congress, apparently the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer isn’t much into reading bills before shooting their ignorant mouths off about them.
After Bitter dragging me to go see the movie of the concert adaptation of the English translation of the musical adaptation of one of Victor Hugo’s novels, all I have to say is that Nick Jonas sucks. Hear me screaming teenage girls? Your teenage heart throb is a shitty stage singer. You don’t stick a pop singer on the stage with classically trained opera singers and not expect him to bring the whole performance down a few levels. The kid has no stage presence, and he has a weak voice. He doesn’t have a bad voice, compared to most boy band phenoms, but there were more than a few moments I wanted to send a TSA agent up on stage to grab his junk and scream “Sing, damn you, sing!” I couldn’t hear his mincy little voice over the women singers, let alone over the men and the orchestra, and his ability to hold a note was not only disappointing, but downright criminal considering the material.
I have never seen a better Valjean than Alfie Boe, and Norm Lewis, who currently stars in the stage version in London, is quite enjoyable as Javert. An excellent cast, except the Jonas creature. Having the teenage girls who came to the theater scream every time Jonas moved his lips inaudibly on stage only added to misery of his presence in this performance. The producers of Les Miserables probably figured they needed to mint a new generation of fans, so they can milk this franchise for another 25 years. That’s fine. I’m not against capitalism. But I am against pop stars with weak voices playing Marius. My only hope is that in a few years when those girls grow up, they’ll go see someone who can show them how the part of Marius is properly performed.
That is my critical review of Les Miserables 25 Anniversary Concert. We now return to our regularly scheduled gun blogging.
I’ve dragged poor Sebastian out to the movies to see the US showing of the Les Miserables 25th anniversary concert tonight. I’m nervous. There’s a Jonas brother in it. I know nothing about Jonas brothers other than they appear on TMZ from time to time, and teen girls apparently throw their undergarments at them. Fortunately, this particular species of Jonas brother plays Marius, and I have no particular favorite actors in that role whose work said Jonas brother could destroy.
The characters that make me the most nervous are Enjolras and Javert. I don’t think there’s any room to improve upon those in the 10th anniversary concert “dream cast.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPpkTgMbhRU[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuBNLsvNntw[/youtube]
As I’ve previously stated, Michael Maguire has the kind of voice to inspire some patriotism. If I’m not up on my feet and trying to lead a revolution in the theater during Red and Black, then the current actor playing Enjolras has failed. Not that I have high expectations or anything…
By the time you read this post, I’ll be well on my way to bawling my eyes out. I cry every time I see Les Mis. It’s just that good.
Eugene Volokh points to an Ohio Circuit Court of Appeals decision in regards to a man who was stripped of his right to bear arms for five years for handing a gun while intoxicated. I just had to laugh at the opinion:
We have herein affirmed appellant’s conviction and in no way seek to diminish the danger of using a firearm while intoxicated, and we further recognize that appellant acted injudiciously in firing his weapon into the ground, at night, as a “memorial†to his deceased dog.
It’s amusing that the court had to opine over Cletus getting drunk one night and and firing a twenty-one-gun-minus-twenty, or maybe twenty-one-gun-minus-nineteen (depending on how soused he was) salute into the ground. The Court ruled that six months was the maximum that he could have his right to bear arms stripped from him “corresponding to the maximum jail sentence period for a first-degree misdemeanor.” As the court notes, Cletus wasn’t trying to hurt anybody, and it was in a rural, unincorporated area.
It’s good to see the Brady Campaign’s young, energetic new face is learning their old misdirections and deceptions like a seasoned expert:
“In 2004, 11,344 people in the U.S. were killed by gun violence,” said Goddard, who was an ROTC student at Virginia Tech. “In New Zealand, it was five.”
Yes, and the U.S. has 300 million people, and New Zealand has 4 million. But it looks more dramatic when you don’t use rates.
Goddard bought automatic 9-mm. handguns and an AK-47, which, if he hadn’t given it to police, could be headed for your neighborhood.
He gave it to police because he would have been committing a felony had he transported it back to his home state or transferred to it someone else without going through a federally licensed dealer.
“Most of the criminals in New York City don’t get their guns in New York,” says Goddard, who’s in town for the screening. “They go down South, where there aren’t many regulations.”
It’s all totally legal – and that’s what Goddard wants to stop. He’s pushing a bill before Congress to require background checks on private sales.
Except that buying a gun out of state and bringing it back to your home state, or transferring it to someone else who is not an FFL, is a felony already. Or are we using Joan Peterson’s standard that if it happens, then it must be legal.
For those of you who aren’t big fans of tv, you may not realize that Bristol Palin is on Dancing with the Stars this season. She’s the only one left (and has been for some time) who isn’t a professional performer in some capacity. She’s endearing, cute, works hard, and is part of a family who many in this country feel have been unfairly targeted for criticism – even beyond political views. It’s not surprising that these many factors, along with the evidence that she’s really come a long way in her dancing skills, have earned her a place in the heart of many viewers.
One man in Wisconsin was apparently so pissed with the results of the last episode that he shot his television, aimed a shotgun at his own wife, and held police in a 15 hour standoff. I do believe that trying to kill your wife over a contestant in a television program is just a tad over the line we call unhinged. (Hat tip to JR Absher for the link.)
Recently Pennsylvania had a Game Commission officer killed in the line of duty. The first one since 1914. These are people who’s daily job involves them confronting people who are guaranteed to be armed just by the very nature of what the Game Commission regulates. The Inquirer is using the death of the officer as an excuse to blame Pennsylvania’s gun laws. I feel dirty even sending traffic to their rag.
UPDATE: Unlike the trash papers in Philadelphia, the Gettysburg Times gives a different viewpoint:
Johnson is now incarcerated without bail in the Adams County Correctional Complex, and has been charged with criminal homicide, felon in possession of a weapon, flight to avoid apprehension, carrying a firearm without a license, possessing an instrument of crime, and resisting arrest or interfering with an officer in the performance of his or her duty.
So presumably the Inquirer believes it better to impose more regulations on the lawful people who have somehow avoided shooting at Game officers for a century, in order to stop a convicted felon who was already prohibited by law from even touching a firearm or ammunition. The Times also notes the guy has been in trouble before:
On Jan. 9, Johnson was also accused of burglarizing Redding’s Hardware, 279 S. Franklin St., Gettysburg, in which he reportedly stole between 20 and 25 handguns.
The guns were taken from a display case and valued at an estimated $12,000 to $15,000.
Stealing from an FFL is a federal felony, in addition to being a state felony. This guy should never have been on the streets to shoot anyone.
Cemetery has a copy of a TIME article dated from 1968 on New Jersey’s tough new gun laws. Those would be what we are familiar with today. Fortunately New Jersey did not become the model for the entire nation, but that wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of the anti-gun folks.
It’s worthwhile to point out that since the passage of this bill in 1968, New Jersey’s violent crime rate has increased from 1968 levels and never come back down. Violent crime in 1968 was half of what it is today. What it did successfully do is lay waste to lawful private gun ownership in the Garden State, which is among the lowest in the nation today. That opened the door to further restrictions which would come later.
Someone posted this on Facebook, apparently. Hopefully he’s not friends with any ATF agents, and hopefully does not own a dog. Putting a fore grip on a pistol turns it into an AOW from a handgun. You can do it legally, but you have to register the gun as an AOW and pay the tax. Some speculation on AR15.com that it was Airsoft. You can see from the nice big rifled barrel showing in the pic that it is not.
Hat Tip to Lucky Gunner.
UPDATE: Original Facebook page here. Dude would seem to be in the Army, but unless that pistol is government issue, it’s still a felony if it was done in the United States. Not sure about if it was done in Iraq or Afghanistan.