June 2011 – Page 7 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Take

Still some goodies scattered around the office that didn’t sell at auction, and were destained for the dumpster. I managed to get:

Two HP3005dn workgroup printers. These are pretty fast networkable B&W laser printers.
A few 125ml Erlenmeyer flasks, new in box. There’s plenty of used glassware around, but that are not suitable for use outside a lab environment.
A dorm fridge we used in the crystallography lab. It pristine, and was never used to store hazardous materials.
A large box meant for transporting a sensitive instrument by air. The instrument is long gone, but the box is rugged, lockable, with wheels and a collapsable travel handle like on carry on luggage. My first thought was that it would make a completely excellent ammo container.
Two clear plexiglass boxes that were meant for storing radioactive materials. They were new in box so never actually stored any such material and are very cool. They will come in handy on my reloading bench, because they are very sturdy, and crystal clear.
A fire extinguisher meant to extinguish chemical fires. You never know when that could come in handy.
A completely new living room set. Our company bought a bunch of leather furniture a few years ago for an employee lounge. It hardly got used, because who has time to lounge? This is the one thing we bid on in the auction, and won. Other things I bid on was a top of the line electronic balance (two guesses what I intended to measure with it), two geiger counters (always handy), but I lost out to other people with deeper pockets. Got the sofa for a few hundred bucks, and it cost the company a few thousand. Furniture was to be had cheap in our auction. Lab equipment not so much.
I also picked up a few office chairs, one for my reloading bench and one for my workstation at home. The one for the reloading bench is really nice.

All in all I’d rather have a job, but there are benefits to sticking it out from beginning to end. Tomorrow I might recycle a bunch of scrap aluminum. At this point, we’re just looking to get crap out. Fortunately, most of it is already. My former office is completely stripped bare. Someone decided the furniture in that, which was not attached to any cubes, was worth hauling off.

Saturday is my 10th Anniversary with the company. Tomorrow the last of us will go out to lunch and celebrate :)

Bemoaning Carry Restrictions

Democrats are starting to use the fact that most concealed carry bills in them contain certain exceptions, such as for schools and courthouses, using this as proof that carrying is just plain dangerous. From Wisconsin:

Some Democrats pointed to the exemptions as proof that allowing concealed carry does introduce a new set of dangers.

“If this bill helps make Wisconsin safer, then why are there any exceptions?” said Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville.

You really want to make this argument? We’d be happy to introduce a bill that contained no exceptions. Careful what you argue.

NRA Dismissed from Suit

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal that ruled NRA did not have standing to challenge the Lost and Stolen ordinances appearing around the Commonwealth. This basically means that a lawsuit will have to be brought by someone actually prosecuted under some of these ordinances, which as far as I know has not yet occurred. For a law our opponents tell us is an important law enforcement tool, badly needed to fight gun trafficking, you’d think they could point to at least one prosecution?

Picking Over the Bones

As a proud member of the species Packus Ratus, I am driving into the soon to be closed office to pick over the remains of anything that’s left that’s destained for the dumpster if a rescue mission is not mounted.

“Teacher and Counselor Showed a Severe Lapse in Judgment”

So says a spokesman for Oakland, California schools. We would ordinarily call these individuals hypocrites, in addition to people who lack judgement. I’m sure the teacher and counselor will be out of a job as a result of this. As soon to be freshly minted gun criminals, I would encourage them to apply or a position at the Brady Campaign, since it’s hard to see how this particular lapse in judgement is any worse than what Plaxico Burriss did.

Copyright Trolls Get Smacked Down

Clayton Cramer is reporting that our friends at Righthaven have been smacked down by a federal court who has dismissed one of their lawsuits for lack of standing. On top of that, the Court is considering applying sanctions to Righthaven. More from Righthaven Victim’s blog here. Steve Gibson also appeared defiant and petulant in an Interview with Wired, claiming there can now be no doubt about Righthaven’s assignment of those copyrights.

I wish Clayton and others best of luck in getting what’s owed to them back. Righthaven or no, the system is still horribly broken that this kind of shakedown was even possible.

Joe Huffman on Brady and Plaxico

Noting that Plaxico got pinched by likely unconstitutional laws that Brady support:

I find this very much like a person of color married to a Caucasian getting a divorce and supporting a white separatist group after getting beat up by members of the KKK for their choice of marriage partners.

Pretty much. I greatly disapprove of Burris’ choices in regards to his methods of carry, but in a just world he would have gotten a fine for carrying irresponsibly (no holster and drinking) and that would have been the end of it. He only hurt himself. Had he hurt someone else I would suggest the law could apply more sanctions for hurting someone else with his own responsibility.

Joining the Fray

The Brady Campaign is now joining Coalition to Ban Handguns in their desire to see the attention shifted away from a large government-sponsored gun running scandal onto Congressman Issa and the need for new gun control laws:

It’s never been more obvious what a scam their phony concern about “gun violence” is. They don’t give a crap about gun violence. All they care about is restricting the 2A to the greatest extent possible.

As Cam Edwards is actively pointing out as I’m writing this, there’s no amount of new gun laws that’s going to help if the federal government is actively encouraging their undermining.

Our Opponents Should be Ashamed

I’m astonished to see Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, formerly the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, trying to help ATF and the Administration find political cover over the Fast and Furious scandal. Again, I remain very skeptical that this organization cares a whit about stopping gun violence, or they’d be just as outraged at this practice as we are:

Understand what was going on here. There were multiple dealers along the border who did not want to make sales to people those dealers knew to be trafficking in guns illegally, but yet were told to allow those sales to proceed by the ATF. One or more of those guns was used in the murder of a Border Patrol Agent, and countless numbers are no doubt murdering people in Mexico. CSGV’s attempts to focus this issue back on Issa, off ATF, and onto our gun laws is not only dishonest, it’s disgusting for a group that properties to care about stopping gun violence.

This kind of attitude clearly shows that Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is an utter fraud. If they really cared about gun violence they’d certainly want to get to the bottom of what is, to give ATF/DOJ leadership more benefit of doubt than they probably deserve, employment of highly questionable law enforcement tactics that have lead to the death of individuals.

CSGV would do well to understand we have a right to own guns in this country. That necessarily takes a lot of their preferred policy prescriptions off the table. That’s a hard pill for them to swallow but it is a fact. If they truly want to be about preventing gun violence, they would be helping to understand what truly happened. But as it is, they are still living in the past, and perpetrating the fraud that they care about gun violence, rather than gun control.

Gun Owners are Irresponsible Drunks

John Richardson highlights some new research by Garen Wintermute showing that gun owners are disproportionately drunks. What does it say about what kind of culturally condescending bigot you are when you even do major research to ask that kind of question? Did Wintermute ever perhaps consider that alcohol consumption was more tied to income? We know that income and gun ownership correlate. Both hooch and guns are something that takes a certain amount of income to partake in. But obviously, here, the goal is to show most gun owners are too irresponsible to be so.