Cemetery Pulled Over. I’m Going to Guess DWJ.

Looks like Cemetery got pulled over near Nashville and got his car searched. I’m guessing, just a guess here, that his crime was DWJ, or Driving While Jersey. It matches my experience that cops in the South are a hell of a lot nicer and more polite while they are crapping all over your rights than they are up here.

The cops were right though, that you don’t need a warrant to bring a dog around the car, but the dog is just a front to get probable cause to do a search. The dog may have shown no objective interest, but had they found contraband, you can bet they would have testified the dog alerted, and would have pointed out to the court that it’s a highly trained dog. The dog could be about as good at finding dope as your neighbor’s Pekingese, but it’ll hold in court. It’s your word against theirs. Who do you think the judge or jury is going to believe?

Basically as long as the cops had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a crime was being committed, which would generally only take following your average driver a few miles, you have a legal stop. Once you have the dog on the car, you have the pretext for a search no matter what the dog actually does. Basically if the cops want to search your car, you’re not going to stop them. The key is not consenting to a search. If the dog comes out, roll with it, just make it clear you don’t consent to the search. Not much else you can do. The 4th Amendment has been dead letter for a long time. All searches are reasonable. Long live the War on Drugs.

Occupy Philadelphia

A blogger colleague who works in the Comcast Center, the tallest building in Philadelphia, has some pics of the Occupy Philly protest trying to occupy the Comcast Center. What I really want to know is who the dude is walking that beam? And what is he accomplishing by being there? How did he get up there? It’s odd that in a picture of occupiers, I’m really floored by the guy with the high wire act.

The best part that Dave notes, “Oh, by the way, I asked my coworker and he said they smelled pretty bad.” Looks like mostly they will be occupying City Hall, which I’m pretty sure probably smells bad enough from the rats that infest that building on any given day. I doubt anyone will notice. But the Comcast Center is private property, and security appears to have acted quickly.

UPDATE: Apparently the high wire act is a statue. I guess that’s why it’s not moving.

The North Korean Fun Fair!

An excellent photo essay of communist dictatorships who are starving their own people trying to look like they are something less than a dilapidated failed country. It kinds of reminds me of one of those Star Trek episodes where the aliens get a hold of some piece of literature and try to recreate what they think represent the human earth world based on that small window of insight into human existence, but pretty much totally get it wrong. From the sample picture I show, pretty clearly the North Korean regime hasn’t ever heard of rule 4. But I guess when you’re starving people by the millions, what’s it to you if someone loses an eye? I guess we should just be happy it’s probably not a real gun, with political dissidents used as backstops. I particularly encourage readers to make sure to see the photos at the bottom of the roller coaster. That takes some guts to get on a rickety piece of crap like that for journalism’s sake.

Or Maybe They Need to Look at Context

Some discussion over whether Herman Cain is aware China is a nuclear power, based on this quote from Cain:

So yes they’re a military threat. They’ve indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.

It could be he just didn’t state it correctly, but in the context of aircraft carriers, this is certainly correct. There are only two nations on earth that have built a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the United States and France, and France’s nuclear carrier program has been plagued with trouble. Building nuclear aircraft carriers is complex and expensive, and we’re the only country on earth that’s really built a strong expertise in doing it. This capability allows us to project power around the world, because our aircraft carriers can use their huge fuel tanks to carry around plenty of fuel — for the planes.

So I’m not sure Herman Cain is ignorant here. He might just have spoken poorly about China trying to develop a nuclear capability for their navy, which is certainly accurate.

Righthaven Finished

Clayton reports that they are getting assets seized for failing to pay a judgement, and notes that tomorrow (today) will be a day for dancing. It’s good to see their uppance has finally come, but I doubt this will be the last we hear about Righthaven. There’s still the matter of the money that was extorted from people, and I don’t see any reasons why Stephens Media shouldn’t be on the hook for it, since they were partners in this scam.

Interesting Semi-Auto Shotgun

Steve at the Firearms Blog has all the specs and some pretty pictures of the system, so go check it out. It holds sixteen rounds of 12 gauge in a magazine which the shooter has to rotate every four shots:

Makes me wonder how hard it would be to create a magazine system similar to this, but where you rotate it after insertion to wind a spring, and the rotation happens automatically during firing. Of course, that might be a little bit too much like this for comfort of the manufacturer.

The problem with semi-auto tactical shotguns is that the magazine needs to be huge to have a reasonable capacity. This is an interesting solution.

Bloomberg Influencing Elections in Virginia

I find it interesting that Bloomberg is concentrating on making Virginia more anti-gun while New York City’s crime rate skyrockets. I’ve tried to figure out why he’d pick Northern Virginia to make a stand. Is it because he wants to attack NRA in its own backyard? Is it because MAIG’s campaign in Pennsylvania in 2010 failed spectacularly? Or is it because the anti-gun groups that are located in DC provide feet on the ground that MAIG doesn’t honestly have to do the heavy grassroots political lifting. I have to wonder if it’s the latter, based on this video where where Josh Horwitz and another gun control advocate uncover the unbelievable scandal of Caren Merrick volunteers walking into a building, and then acting shocked because the volunteers seem to have no idea who these two people are, or what they’re talking about.

I admit to not following Virginia politics very closely. Any ideas what Bloomberg is doing? Is this a particularly important election?

The Straw Men Builders

Smug AlertI’ve been sitting on this post by Cliff Schecter for a couple of days, trying to figure out how to comment on it. As I mentioned the other day, the media has gotten a lot better about presenting our issue, but you still have some in the media who just can’t help but look down on us and denigrate our views. Cliff Schecter is such a person. I’m always torn between whether or not to deal with ridiculous nonsense perpetrated by ridiculous people. Is Schecter anyone of consequence who is even honestly worth responding to? Am I just beating my head against a wall? Ultimately, I think it’s worthwhile to point out to readers that many of the people who oppose us politically are ignorant fools masquerading as learned pundits.

Schecter is committing the common fallacy of our opponents by constructing a caricature of gun owners and Second Amendment advocates, and denigrating the straw man, rather than arguing with what we actually believe, and acknowledging who we actually are. What he presents here is more mental masturbation than a serious argument. When you want to feel better about yourself by looking down on other people, it helps if you can convince yourself they are rubes and dolts, rather than lawyers, engineers, scientists, business executives, and financial analysts (we have them all in the gun blogging community).

Schecter begins his post by imaging an advanced alien species looking at our gun culture from afar, presumably aliens who are also smug, left-leaning public relations professionals, just like he is:

Had this alien arrived on this planet six months ago and paid attention to reports about guns in the news since, he/she/it would’ve been consistently confronted with a literal clown-car cast of cartoon characters who are responsible for deciding and passing what amounts to our gun policies. We’re talking here about people who shouldn’t be allowed to make their own beds, much less public policy.

Schecter no doubt would like to imagine himself in the same camp as an advanced alien race. Surely the aliens wouldn’t side with the people who “shouldn’t be allowed to make their own beds, much less public policy.” It’s not every day you see people going through the effort of using aliens to help build a smug sense of self-satisfaction. It takes real effort to go as far as Schecter has here.

But our alien friend would watch these hucksters on TV, telling us to ignore that states with lower gun ownership on the whole are much safer, and those with the highest gun ownership rates and weakest laws–Alaska, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Wyoming, have the highest gun-death rates.

Pointing out the fact that gun-death rates include suicides, which is not something I think has any impact on my safety, it can be shown that his claim is just not true. I’ve run the numbers, and he’s just plain wrong. But I suppose I should not expect my primitive statistical skills to measure up against a race of advanced aliens.

First, you can watch a Youtube clip of Waldo-impersonating NRA honcho, Wayne LaPierre, getting up and making a speech to conservatives in Florida, where he warned them he had proof that President Barack Obama was going to take their guns away, if re-elected.

Just look at who Obama put on the Supreme Court. We’re one vote away from Heller and McDonald being overturned, and if that happens, it is doubtful that DC and Chicago would not re-instate their complete prohibitions on handgun ownership. Schecter also completely glosses over the fact that there’s quite a lot to worry about between no regulation, and confiscation, but it always helps to simplify your opponents argument when you’re trying to look smarter than they are.

You see, certain states–about a dozen or 15–think it’s a swell idea to allow people to get concealed carry permits even if they have a record of domestic abuse, misdemeanor assault with a firearm, known drunkenness and a lack of any training with a gun whatsoever.

Someone with a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction is federally prohibited from possessing firearms and not covered by HR822. I also can’t think of any state where assault with a firearm is a misdemeanor. Assault with any deadly weapon is generally known as “aggravated assault” and is a felony. It is true that some states don’t require training, or don’t consider whether you’re a drunk, but I can’t think of any constitutional right where we take either into consideration. This isn’t a privilege we’re talking about, it’s a right, and that has consequences.

Finally, because carrying concealed weapons in grocery stores and parks just wasn’t enough, the NRA decided to start pushing bills to allow concealed weapons in bars–which makese sense because nothing I can think of goes better together than six shots of Jack and a loaded Glock. Of course, “technically,” only non-drinking customers are allowed to take their guns into bars.

In most states the law makes no distinction between a bar and a restaurant — they only issue liquor licenses to establishments for on-premsis consumption. It seems perfectly reasonable that a person who is trusted to carry a gun everywhere else in public ought to be allowed to carry in a restaurant provided he does not drink. In many states that have passed restaurant carry bills, the penalties for violating the law are “technically” quite severe, often more severe than a DUI conviction, despite the fact that operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated is far more hazardous than being in possession of a firearm.

To be honest, I’m getting bored with gun control advocates these days. While their recent descent into utter ridiculousness has been a good source for posts, I actually enjoy public policy discussion with reasonable people who can make challenging arguments. While it is good for our movement that the supply of reasonable people on the other side is in precipitous decline, when you’re a blogger, you start feeling like you’re just refuting the same, tired mischaracterized arguments over and over again. I’ve seen dozens of Cliff Schecters over my nearly five years as a gun blogger, and while I can appreciate that feeling superior to your fellow Americans is a powerful motivator for our opponents, it’s tiresome. Ultimately the Schecters of the world either have to start acting like intelligent, reasonable people, or face being ignored in political obscurity. Their inability to make quality arguments I believe has played a role in the decline of gun control in this country. As a shooter and Second Amendment supporter, I am glad for that. But it certainly doesn’t make it easy to run a blog about gun policy when the only arguments you ever get to refute are ridiculous and clownish.