The 4-hour minimum training required by the DOJ has been tossed. You still must obtain training, but there’s no longer any minimum time requirement, and a basic NRA pistol course would qualify. I believe this makes the training requirement for Wisconsin to be very similar to Florida.
Year: 2011
Election Day 2011 NRA Endorsements
Tuesday is Election Day! We’ll be heading out to vote tomorrow, and I hope you folks will be as well. (If you don’t live in PA, this post doesn’t really relate to you, but you can visit the PVF page for endorsements in your state.)
Did you know the NRA has issued endorsements in several of the judicial races? Yeah, you’d think as EVCs, we would have been told before Cam mentioned it on NRA News last week… Oh well, we know now.
For the Supreme Court, NRA supports J. Michael Eakin.
At the Superior Court level, NRA supports Vic Stabile.
For Commonwealth Court, NRA supports Anne Covey.
Polls open at 7am and close at 8pm. There will likely be absolutely no wait, so don’t tell me you don’t have time to go vote.
Want to Make Something More Popular?
Ban it. Apparently across the pond fox hunting is more popular than ever:
Yet a bigger factor appears to be that exquisitely delinquent streak in the British character that reacts against the hectoring and bossiness of officialdom. As a result, thousands of people who previously had little obvious interest in hunting have taken it up.
“Our membership has doubled to around 1,000 since the law was passed,†says Sam Butler, the Warwickshire’s ebullient Master. “The support we are getting from the communities is incredible.
That certainly pleases me to hear there is at least some willingness to resist intrusions into country life over there. We had a similar experience over on this side of the Atlantic with the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. The “banned” weapons had a great increase in popularity both during the ban, and after it expired. The AR-15 was not as widely owned when they were banned in 1994. Shooters generally preferred the M1A, M1 Garand, or M1 carbines. Despite the fact that all of these firearms are military arms, or of a military pattern, they were popular, and so most states excepted them from their bans. They were also exempted from the federal ban. The AR-15 was not, and was, in fact, targeted by state and federal bans by name. Seventeen years later, and seven years after the expiration of the ban, the AR-15 is far more popular than any of the exempted firearms.
The ban had the unintended effect of piquing interesting in the banned rifles among shooters, and many competitors found the AR-15 more accurate and better suited for shooting matches. Collectors also developed interest. Americans, I believe, also possess the same “character that reacts against the hectoring and bossiness of officialdom,” as their British cousins.
My first rifle was an AK-47 patterned Romanian SAR1, which was not covered by the ban. I bought it specifically to make a statement. I didn’t really get into shooting in any serious way until later. In fact, it was the Assault Weapons Ban movement that made me start paying attention to the right to keep and bear arms, and developed my concern that the Second Amendment was in serious danger. I think there’s a whole generation of shooters who became concerned about their rights specifically through the 1994 ban.
I could make a good argument, in hindsight, that lobbying for, and eventually passing that ban, was the biggest strategic mistake the other side made. It was a bridge too far. It’s refreshing to see the fox hunting ban in the UK may be having the same kind of effect, especially since much of it is being driven by the political dominance of urban dwellers in the UK, who know nothing of the English and Welsh countryside, but who want to regulate life there heavily nonetheless, their traditions and pastimes be damned. That can have unintended consequences, and as our opponents on the “assault weapons” issue here would probably be willing to admit in their weaker moments, that doesn’t always work out in their favor over the long run.
Dear Amy
From an advice column over at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a woman asks what to do about “When our family gets together for any holiday, my niece’s husband has to bring a gun with him.” The husband in question has a valid permit to carry, and she has requested that he leave the gun at home. The husband said either she accepts it, or he won’t be coming over for the holidays.
Of course, Dear Amy consults those noted gun experts at the Brady Campaign and dispenses their advice, which if they had any power, would probably be to call social services on the guy and have his children taken away. But since we don’t live in Brady world, they just yammer about how guns are just going to cause tragedy, reciting long debunked studies about how guns are more likely to kill family members than intruders.
Personally, I’ve never had to deal with anything like this. My first question to the husband would be how these people know he’s carrying? I’ve always found discretion is the best policy in situations with sensitive family. Really, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. It’s always been my policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of firearms.
If I were the husband, I’d just stay home, unless it was important to my wife to go, in which case I’d abide by the wishes of the aunt who does not approve of firearms in her home. It is her home, at the end of the day, and she can make the rules. But I’d probably also try to talk to her about her irrational fears if the wife was OK with that. Bitter and I have never had this problem, however, because neither of us have had issues with relatives of this nature. I have relatives who probably would not approve of firearm carriage, but I never saw any reason to broach the topic.
Gun Control Crowd Still Harassing Caren Merrick
Our opponents are telling Caren Merrick to release her NRA questionnaire, or they shall taunt her a second time. You can see why they are doing anything they can to turn the pressure up, because the polling in this district. But gun control is just not an issue that energizes people to get to the polls, no matter how much our opponents want to make it appear to work that way. They can get a lot of attention from a sympathetic media, but when it comes to putting people in the voting booth, they come up empty. Nonetheless, the Democrats are trying to scare voters on social issues in an election that looks increasingly likely to hinge on economic issues.
I guess after tomorrow we’ll see how things go. If you’re a gun owner in Northern Virginia, I’d go see whether Caren Merrick, or any of the other GOP Senate candidates need any help on election day tomorrow. This is going to be an important election for gun owners. Not only is lowering Virginia’s Brady score at stake, but so is giving Bloomberg a boost if he’s able to eke out some victories, and the Democrats are able to retain control of the Virginia Senate.
UPDATE from Bitter: I realize that some folks are confused by this post. Merrick is rated A- and running against an F-rated opponent. Winning in the state Senate is particularly important for gun owners, according to previous reports we’ve heard from Dave Adams with the VSSA. Anti-gunners have been harassing volunteers for this candidate because they claim she hasn’t released her NRA questionnaire to them in order to use to attack her.
It’s Time to Fire Joe Paterno
For those of you who don’t follow Pennsylvania sports, there’s really only one team that doesn’t completely suck and plays in something close to what the rest of the country considers real college football. It’s Penn State, and their head coach has been there since 1950 (though only as head coach since 1966). The man is revered in Pennsylvania. I don’t understand why, either. Joe Paterno has only got such a high number of wins because he’s been doing the job so long. He doesn’t have the highest percentage of wins, and earlier this decade, he led the team in a severe losing streak.
This weekend, conveniently on an off week for Penn State & released on a Saturday, the state AG’s office announced that one of Paterno’s now-retired coaches has been sexually assaulting very young boys for years. The charges aren’t just for minors, but for minors under the age of 13. The guy also had a charity set up for troubled young boys that served as his easy source of victims.
To make the news for Penn State even worse? Paterno knew and decided to simply tell the school’s athletic director once he heard from an eyewitness that his coaching staff was raping a boy who appeared to be about 10 in the stadium’s showers. The athletic director & a school vice president are now being charged with perjury and not reporting the incident to police. Yet, prosecutors seem to be ignoring the fact that Paterno and a graduate assistant in the football program also knew and did not report it to police, instead only reported it to college officials. (Granted, not reporting the crime seem to be only a summary offense. In that case, I believe that’s actually a better reason to use the charge – it won’t end someone’s life, but it will reiterate that they should have reported it.)
Of course, this is not the first time that Paterno has ignored the consequences of sexual assault allegations. When a player from another team was alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman, here was Paterno’s response:
“There’s some tough — there’s so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?â€
Here’s a hint: If a cute girl knocks on a door, don’t sexually assault her. (Though, it would seem the case against the player ultimately didn’t go anywhere, the accusations were fresh at the time he was asked.)
So, what do you do when someone tells you your former staffer who you allow to access your stadium & allow to attend games & coaching meetings with these young boys is seen raping them in the showers? Here’s a hint, Paterno: You don’t go to your boss and then leave it alone. You call the police. If your boss won’t do it, you do it. You follow up every damn day. You encourage the guy who actually witnessed the assault to go to the police.
I find this most appalling because I’ve seen local media & commentary applauding Paterno for his great response of not calling the police when he hears that young children are being raped by his coaching staff in his team’s showers. WTF?
I look back to my memories of the most popular coach I can recall in Oklahoma – Barry Switzer. (Please keep in mind that I was 9 years old when the guy resigned, so I’m having to go off news reports I’m finding now.) Switzer had to resign from OU (with a higher percentage of wins than Paterno, thankyouverymuch) after several players were arrested for various crimes and the NCAA launched an investigation into the program. Yet, Paterno is still at Penn State with full support after ESPN reported that in a six year period, 46 of his players managed to find themselves with 163 criminal charges. That comes out to more than three criminal charges per player in trouble in a few short years.
I don’t understand how this guy still has the support of the school, support in the media, and support of alumni. According to media reports, the Board of Trustees didn’t even entertain the question of whether Paterno should be forced to resign or retire. I come from a state that is far more serious about their college football, and I’m pretty sure that after this kind of record, we would be calling for the heads of everyone who knew and didn’t report it to law enforcement.
Joe Paterno’s career should end, and he should not be revered as some amazing football coach. He should be remembered as a guy who looked the other way while children were raped and assaulted on his watch. Of course, should he leave on his own terms, Pennsylvania taxpayers will likely be on the hook for a very generous retirement package to reward his behavior of looking the other way for criminals in his program.
UPDATE 11/8: The NYT reports that inside sources say Paterno’s time is up at Penn State. They are supposedly working on an exit plan now.
Caught Astroturfing
Thirdpower has uncovered that one “I’m a gun owner… but” article was actually written by the former Mayor of Madison, WI, who is actually a member of the anti-gun group  Mayors Against Illegal Guns, going by the name of “Citizen Dave.” You see, when they don’t actually have grassroots, they will manufacture them. I would be reluctant to call these people “Fudds.” A more apt word would be “Frauds.” These folks are anti-gun forces masquerading as sportsmen. Kudos to the bloggers who uncovered the true identify of this bozo.
This is really no match for our grassroots resources. Our opponents’ duplicity is too easy to uncover, and, after all, they take the weekends off.
On State Defense Forces
Instapundit links to this Strategy Page story on state defense forces. They are a lot more common than you might think. While the National Guard is pretty clearly what our founding fathers would have considered a “select militia,” the various SDFs are the modern equivalent of what would be considered more traditional militias. Today most SDFs aren’d armed bodies, but serve as an emergency resource.
Disarming Our Soldiers (For Their Own Good)
As the Brady Campaign descends to new depths of madness, here’s just one other objective our opponents are supporting:
The article they link to is here:
“Multiple studies indicate that preventing easy access to lethal means, such as firearms, is an effective form of suicide prevention,” authors Harrell and Berglass wrote.
They are urging Congress to repeal the restriction on the military interfering with the private firearm ownership of soldiers. Understand what they are saying here: we have to prevent “easy access” to “lethal means” for our nation’s soldiers.
If any police or military folks thinks these people won’t eventually disarm you, think again.
While the Gun Control Crowd Has Been in Hysterics …
… over the fact that Wisconsin has just become the 41st state to adopt shall-issue…. gun owners have been busy lobbying the Wisconsin legislature to pass Castle Doctrine.