2011 – Page 37 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Senate Race Against Casey Suddenly Gets Interesting

I’m working on a review of all the races Pennsylvania gun owners have to worry about in 2012, even though we’re still weeks out from Election Day 2011. The Keystone State will be an interesting place to be. Even though it’s been solidly blue for presidential elections, Obama’s popularity is in the toilet here.

We have a Senate race where the incumbent’s staff can’t even confirm whether the Senator is actually alive. There’s even a Facebook group dedicated to figuring out if Sen. Bob Casey is breathing. And yet, just to keep things interesting, a possibly dead Senator with a reputation of not even showing up to do his elected job as part of an unpopular party still couldn’t attract any top-tier challengers. D’oh.

The last couple of weeks have seen that change, and now we have two who I would classify as top-tier for fresh blood. They haven’t held office before, but they have solid networks in place to put together real campaigns. One ran in a heavily Democratic district for Congress and lost by pretty narrow margins in 2010, and the other didn’t have a chance to shine given that the GOP incumbent in his district suddenly “un-retired” from the race and pushed him out. Specifically, they are Tim Burns and Steven Welch.

Burns had an A rating from NRA in his campaign against John Murtha’s former chief of staff. While Welch never had the opportunity to be graded, he does have a “2nd Amendment” section on his issues webpage. (Bob Casey previously had an A rating, but that could change based on his behavior in office.)

I still can’t say much about Congressional races since we’re losing a House seat, and no one knows where the district lines will be drawn. The likely result will be two A-rated Democrats pitted against one another in a primary. Boo – at least based on the gun issue. The state races will also be big. We have at least one gun-unfriendly candidate for Attorney General – a race that will impact Pennsylvania’s ~600,000 concealed carry license holders. So, yeah, 2012 will be an interesting year for gun folks.

Gun Culture 1.0 v. Gun Culture 2.0

SayUncle says he doesn’t get ranges that ban carry. I think it’s one of the sillier things you’ll find out there in the gun community, but their is an explanation for why it’s more common than it should be. The most frequent retort is that insurance is the reason, but I don’t actually believe that’s the case most of the time. As someone who is currently an officer at a local club, I can probably speak to what’s driving some clubs to adopt this.

Part of it goes back toÂ Michael Bane’sÂ assertion of there being a Gun Culture 1.0, and a Gun Culture 2.0. I’m reluctant to use this analogy, because there’s not really as clean a division among the gun culture as it implies, but it is useful for illustrating the mentality difference from those in the culture who are self-defense oriented, and those that are more connected to the traditional hunting and shooting culture. There is significant overlap between the two cultures, but there are even generational differences in how one approaches the subject of concealed carry, for instance.

The vast majority of clubs are run by people from Gun Culture 1.0. This is certainly true of my club. Except my club does allow concealed carry, you just have to keep it concealed, and aren’t permitted to draw or shoot your carry piece except in an emergency. Pennsylvania has had concealed carry longer than most other states (since 1989), so even most people in Gun Culture 1.0 here carry, even if they aren’t shooting IPSC, IDPA or any of the other action or practical shooting disciplines. The reason clubs are run by Gun Culture 1.0 is because those are the people with the time to invest in overseeing a club. It takes a lot of work, and it’s not something most people in their 30s and 40s have time for. I barely have time for it, and I just basically try to do my job and not much else.

The other major factor that plays into rules like this is that most club boards are responsible for dealing with range incidents. If the club is large enough, the board is typically going to see a parade from the small minority of people who’s gun handling and safety mentality is either poor or non-existent. It’s relatively easy to fall into a mindset that your members are not to be trusted, since you’re dealing with grave stupidity on a regular basis. You’ll never see the 99% of people who are safe. You’ll spend a lot of time interacting with the 1% who aren’t.

I’ve always wondered whether it would be better to set high standards for getting into a private club, but once those standards are met, you are essentially bound only by a handful of safety oriented rules. Our club has a qualification, but it’s essentially being able to hit a rather large piece of paper at ten yards with a pistol. You have to be a real wild man with a gun to fail our qualifier. If you were going to allow someone to, say, draw from holster, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to make them qualify to do so, so someone can verify they know how to do the task safely. The unfortunate fact, at least based on my experience at clubs, is that if you allowed it broadly, it’s not going to be too long before someone puts a round in their leg, or even worse, someone else’s leg. There are a few local commercial ranges that allow draw from holster, but both have armor plating between stalls. Most clubs don’t have the money for that kind of setup, and most people don’t want to be next to a Cletus who can’t avoid finger f***ing his trigger guard every time he draws if the only thing separating you is a few feet of air.

My club probably implements a reasonable compromise between Gun Culture 1.0 and 2.0, when it comes to carrying on the premises. Not all do, and that’s unfortunate. But it’s also a product of the fundamental nature of clubs, and the membership. Clubs are civic organizations, and not really structured like businesses. People in the GC 1.0 age group are more familiar with and better at navigating that kind of organization than people in the GC 2.0 age group, who tend to want to think of shooting facilities as a product they buy or don’t buy, rather than a civic, membership driven enterprise. This is understandable, but without GC 2.0 stepping up, eventually we’re going to lose a lot of good places to shoot, and that will really be unfortunate.

LAPD Missing Some Submachine Guns

Apparently some 30 MP5s have disappeared from the LAPD arms locker. And LAPD spokeswoman is saying they were MP5s altered to fire blanks. This didn’t make sense to me, because I thought you only needed a blank firing adapter on firearms that needed gas pressure to cycle the action. The MP5, as I recall, is a roller locking, delayed recoil mechanism. Can anyone who’s an expert comment on this? Can you fire blanks from an MP5 unaltered? Even if you need a blank adapter, I can’t imagine it’s difficult to remove, as is claimed by the LAPD spokesperson.

A Sign of the Times

I figured the Obama Administration was never going to live up to people’s high expectations. What I did not expect is that Congress would need to insert a funding amendment that would essentially tell the Administration that it can’t traffic firearms to drug cartels anymore. This funding rider passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. I am pleased that not trafficking firearms to drug cartels is a position that draws support from both parties.

Funding riders like this have actual teeth. While F&F arguably broke a number of federal laws, misappropriating funds is also a crime, and one that’s easier to prosecute for.

“Florida Loophole” in the Press

This time in St. Louis, but still using Philly as an example. We’ve documented previously that these articles have been popping up all over. The purpose of this article is to help defeat HR822, it would seem. It’s worth noting that HR822 does not extend to residents in their home states, so both before and after HR822, this Florida issue is still completely a matter of state prerogatives.

The city argues that it needs latitude in determining who is a threat, because of long-standing problems in the court system. A Philadelphia Inquirer report last year noted that while prosecutors in other big cities win felony convictions in half of violent-crime cases, in Philadelphia, prosecutors had been winning only 20 percent.

It seems to me that this is the real problem to fix. You can’t have a revolving door justice system and expect to turn your city as a whole into a kind of low-level prison, where we all have to deal with more restrictive laws because the City can’t serve basic functions such as controlling crime. It is also absolutely inappropriate to consider arrests, rather than convictions, in determining who is permitted to exercise a constitutional right.

Some Good and Bad News on the Job Front

Posting yesterday was light due to a job interview in Philly. It went well. It’s a very good fit, and I think it would be a great work environment. I interviewed with another outfit Monday, and it also went well. Both are outfits that interviewed me for other jobs, turned me down, but have brought me back to consider me for other positions. So I am happy about that.

But the company I interviewed with Monday just has clues here and there that it might not be a great work environment. There are certain warning signs you can kind of pick up during the interview process, and I’ve been getting those kinds of vibes. It’s little give aways that kind of let you know that people aren’t all that happy and relaxed. If you’ve never been on the other side of the table, interviewing people for a position in an environment you know is miserable, you might not know what I mean. I could be completely misreading the situation, but I just have a gut feeling. If not for that, the work sounds pretty interesting, and it would get me back into engineering and out of IT, which is an interesting proposition, but not something I’m completely sure I want to do yet.

The place I interviewed with yesterday seems to be a happy, relaxed place to work, and I’ve been favorably impressed with the people I’ve met during the interviews. The outfit is extremely stable, so for once I would not be worrying every month that I might not have a job the next month. I’d have some people under me, so it would get me some better management experience than I currently have. But this is a large employer, and I expect they will not be able to move as quickly as the other outfit. I believe that the other outfit is progressing toward an offer.

So the job that puts off some bad vibes is likely to plunk cash on the table before the job that I think I would really enjoy. But when you’re unemployed, cash on the table is cash on the table. So what to do? My inclination is to proceed with the offer, and set a start date to mid-November. That will hopefully buy enough time to see if the other opportunity can be progressed to an offer. If they can move quickly enough to telling me their intention is to hire, I will withdraw from the other outfit before my start date. It’s a bit of a shitty thing to do, I think, to accept a job then pull out before you start, but it’s probably better than starting and quitting after a few weeks.

I’m curious if any readers have had experience with this situation, on either side of the table, and what you think the best policy is? You begin to understand why employers are wary of the unemployed. I have to wonder if it’s not so much the stigma of the person being let go by someone else, so much as that unemployment makes you consider doing things you’d never do looking to switch jobs. I have always held myself to high standards, and this is not a natural thing for me to do. Do you tell the one employer they are a second choice? What if the first choice falls through? I’m afraid I’m not going to be relaxed until I’m settled in a job.

We are the Mainstream

When I see CSGV crying in their cornflakes about Living Social shooting coupons, it catches my attention. I assumed they just swiped a link from one of the many I highlighted last week that revealed more than 11,100 people may have hit up the range due to Living Social bargains.

Instead, they are complaining about a current Chicago deal that treats folks to a wine tasting after they are done shooting. For only $65 bucks, you also get a meal in the deal. The best part is the purchase count. The total as I’m typing? 2,027. And the number keeps rising as I refresh.

UPDATE: As a commenter points out, the deal has sold out since this posted with 2,110 sold. When I initially looked at the deal, it was less than 2,000 sold.

Quote of the Night – GOP Debate

The quote of the night didn’t come from any of the candidates. Nor is the quote of the night CNN’s false promise of a right to keep and bear arms question (and subsequent failure to deliver). It came from Wyatt on Twitter:

Why am I picturing Rick Perry riding the A-bomb to campaign destruction a la Slim Pickens?

Philly Mayor’s Opposition to HR822

WyattÂ offers his opinion to the Mayor on blaming the Â the city’s problems on guns. Nutter’s noting that many Florida permits are going to high crime areas does not surprise me. Philadelphia routinely uses the “character or reputation” clause to deny people improperly. You can appeal, but that goes to a Board stocked with the Mayor’s cronies, and they always uphold denials. You can appeal a denial to the Court of Common Pleas, but you have to hire a lawyer to do that, and a Florida license is a lot cheaper than a lawyer.

This Florida issue wouldn’t be an issue if Philadelphia issued LTCs under the same standards employed in the rest of the state.

Small Business Owners as Extortionists?

The Occupy Wall Street supporters in the media are starting to become as unhinged as some of the stranger folks up in New York. Our local suburban paper features a columnist calling small business owners who are concerned that it’s simply too expensive to hire new workers due to increasing federal requirements and tax increases proposed by the President extortionists who are unpatriotic.

Not only are they unpatriotic criminals, but these little local business owners are all hatching a plot to kill the economy in order to elect a Republican.

The crazy is strong in this one. Her column actually includes long quotes from a business owner who outlined the risks in hiring new employees – the direct financial risk of how much they will cost, the risk of how much value they will add to the organization, and the increasing hassles and expenses of dealing with various government bureaucracies who control the many aspects of his business. Yet, she cannot accept this simple answer. It’s all a plot to derail Obama. She has no evidence, but that won’t stop the accusations from flying in her paper.

Since she tried to tie such political extortion to our Congressman, he decided to respond with a damning response to her claims:

As part of [one] employerâ€™s characterization of the obstacles facing his business, and in the story about [a local] manufacturer, neither made any mention of Republicans, Democrats, Obama or one of the GOP presidential hopefuls. It is not a case of pure politics, but of overbearing and ineffective government.

So it doesn’t matter to our local paper whether they business owners are actually supporting Republicans or they actually plan to vote for Obama. The fact that they won’t invest every dollar of their savings into taking massive risks in hiring is still a crime.

Fortunately, writer Katie Fratti & the other staff at the Courier Times don’t need to worry about whether money from extortionists is lining their wallets anymore. As investors in small businesses, we will not support their work as subscribers. If they come around selling subscriptions again, I’ll make sure they know exactly why we will not support them. We don’t believe they must agree with us, but actually publishing a conspiracy-laced rant against local businesses is not up to the basic journalistic standards we would expect from a professional outfit.