2011 – Page 54 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Some Old Childhood Memories

Tam’s wikihole adventure yesterday morning, in regards to the world of Sid and Marty Krofft, took me back. Some of my formative childhood experiences were from one of their shows, namely Land of the Lost. Looking at the date on those, I was probably picking up reruns a few years after it originally aired. My sister and I had a stay Â home mom, who’s stay at home mom gossip circle were the ladies by the kiddie pool at the local swim club.

There were two shows I’d throw fits over missing if we were dragged to the pool. One was Star Blazers, and the other was Land of the Lost. We were fortunate to be early adopters of VHS technology, which enabled my mother to set the primitive timing device to record my shows, and get me to the pool with minimal complaint. Sadly, I don’t think I kept any of these recordings, but for those of you of a different generation, thanks to the miracle of YouTube and internets, you can find it here:

I had a horrible little boy crush on the Holly character. I can remember being young begging my parents to take me to a place regularly advertised on TV in the Philadelphia area, Crystal Cave, in Kutztown. As a small child, I was convinced if I could get to these caves, I could unlock the secrets that would allow me to control the universe, bring on the Sleetak/Dinosaur revolution, and be with Holly forever. Eventually my parents relented, and we went. I was thrilled with anticipation. When I got there… no friggin pylons. In case you’re not sure what I’m saying here, there were no friggin pylons! What kind of lame-ass place calls themselves Crystal Cave, and no only are there no pylons, there aren’t even any damned crystals. No Sleestaks, and definitely no dinosaurs. The secrets of the universe turned out to be pretty damned lame to me as a young kid.

I’ve been in caverns since, but I’ve never been back to Crystal Cave. Maybe it’s time to go back and give it another chance.

An Opportunity

This was the final question from the CNN/Tea Party Express debate:

BLITZER: Eight Republican presidential candidates on the stage.

You know, Americans are looking at you. They also want to know a little bit more about you.

I’m going to start with Senator Santorum. I want to go down and get your thoughts on something you would bring to the White House if you were the next president of the United States.

An example, President George H. W. Bush put in a horseshoe pit. President Clinton put in a jogging track. President Obama added a vegetable garden.

Here are the responses:

Santorum – More beds.
Gingrich – Get rid of czars, my wife’s music, something ballet-related, and a giant chess set.
Paul – He’d teach economics classes. And give boring as hell answers to personality-driven questions.
Perry – A First Lady whose husband knows how to kiss ass.
Romney- Bust of Winston Churchill.
Bachmann – Things that make the Tea Party people cheer.
Cain – “I would bring a sense of humor to the White House, because America’s too uptight.”
Huntsman – Harley-Davidson and motocross bike.

Wouldn’t it have been great if one of them had named a gun? Hell, I wouldn’t care if they said a shotgun or hunting rifle. I still would have gone nuts over a broad answer like more hunting gear. Or even something like freshly harvested venison, for the White House Chef to cook up more often. I wouldn’t expect something like more great targets to display on the walls, but with Gov. Perry in the debate, it wouldn’t be out of the question.

I don’t expect any hardcore gun nut answers from a presidential campaign, but some nod to at least one of our sports and our overall community values would be nice.

Once Again, We’re the Scapegoats

We’re made out to be responsible for the acts of murdering criminals. I know about this unfortunate murder, because in Twitter Space, the Brady Campaign have been hanging about like a sleazy ambulance chasing lawyer at the scene of a fatal accident.

Sorry, but I didn’t kill that young woman. It’s illegal under federal law, in case the NY Daily News is not aware, to buy firearms in South Carolina and smuggle them to New York City to sell on the streets to criminals. You can do ten years for each count in the federal pen. I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do, that still respects the fact that being able to buy a gun is a basic, fundamental right if you’re law-abiding.

Getting the blame for the criminal actions of others is one of my primary motivations for staying active in this issue. There’s no practice of our opponents that I find more motivating than their attempts to make me the scapegoat for these social ills. It’s ironic that the New York Daily News probably believes it’s helping fan the flames of gun control, but in reality they are sowing the seeds of the destruction of New York City’s gun laws, by keeping people like you and me in the game.

Ready, Set, Go!

It’s a race to the bottom. This is a bottom I am quite happy to race to, because all the noise being made in opposition is nothing by the hysterical ramblings of irrelevant and frightened people.

CSGV Latest Pathetic Attack

CSGV’s latest message seems to be that when it comes to gun scandals, at least fourÂ out of NRA’s 76 elected board members have some experience backing anti-communist guerrillas in Cold War proxy conflicts, some of which didn’t have the nicest of bedfellows. Shocking, I know, that our government engaged in lot of unpleasantness to rid the world of Soviet communism, resulting in a lot of folks with dirty hands. But what exactly is the greater strategy at work in Fast and Furious? At best, and this is still a dubious claim, there’s some elaborate cloak and dagger affair in play to prop up the Sinaloa Cartel. If that’s the case, I’d really like to know how that helps the situation in Mexico. At worst, Fast and Furious was meant to get more guns into Mexico to make the case for more gun control, and bigger budgets at the Department of Justice.

I don’t think four NRA Board members can be construed to represent an endorsement by NRA as a whole of their past activities. Whether Horwitz likes it or not, Ollie North is a hero to many Americans, and enough NRA members, to get him the votes he needs to be on the Board. If you think this article is utter fail, this web site on NRA Board members should give you a better idea of just how sad, pathetic, and bitter the folks at CSGV are. But I do have to thank them. Their little web site provided at least fifteen minutes of amusement for me in realizing just how out of touch they are with ordinary Americans, in terms of what they find to be “controversial.”

I think it’s also quite telling that, rather than trying to get to the bottom of F&F, CSGV is instead of spending it’s time looking for ways to smear NRA. That should tell you just how much of a masquerade the whole gun violence thing is. The difference between NRA and CSGV is NRA is still being true to it’s mission. CSGV has shown they care more about hurting NRA than they care about gun violence.

The Mystery of GOP Debates

First, there was the debate sponsored by MSNBC. I’m not sure what Republicans were thinking, “This is a brilliant idea! Hosted by a network that hates us and with a liberal audience who won’t be voting in Republican primaries!”

Next, there was last night. I think the timing of the debate is best summed up by Jim Geraghty in today’s Morning Jolt:

Well, sure, it was up against the season premiere of Monday Night Football, but at least the early primary states were tuned in. Wait, the New England Patriots were playing, so every football fan in New Hampshire was watching ESPN. Okay, but the debate was taking place in Florida, so at least the Florida Republicans, er, wait, no, the Patriots were playing Miami. Hey, Tea Party Express, what other debate dates were you contemplating? Halloween? Thanksgiving night? Christmas?

And that doesn’t even get into the actual debate itself, most of which we caught.

There was the 30-year-old man debacle in which Ron Paul was asked if a fit, young guy carried no health insurance at all and then got into a bad accident, what should happen to him? No real answer came out, so he was asked outright if the guy should be left to die. And, of course, a brilliant Ronulian decided to scream out that he should, which became the answer everyone focused on for the evening. Stay classy, Paul supporter. You just made your candidate look like a bigger douche. Then, Paul finally said that churches bailed sick people out when he used to practice shortly after the Stone Age. Somehow, I don’t think putting the cost of healthcare on the backs on non-profits is the world’s best plan. Bachmann was then asked to tackle the 30-year-old question and the non-answer turned into screaming about Obamacare. Apparently, no one in the GOP presidential pool can say, “Send him the bill for his care.”

But the really bizarre turn happened when the issue of giving the HPV vaccine that can prevent a form of cancer in women was more controversial than Romney’s version of Obamacare. Bachmann was on a roll with a Jenny McCarthy-type rant against the vaccine, and I’ve seen more than a fair share of social conservatives on Twitter express discomfort with the extremes in her behavior on stage when it came to the HPV issue. Hello? Tea Party audience members who were wildly cheering her on, if you’re so anti-vaccine, why stay calm & let the Romneycare go with a pass? It seemed like the audience’s priorities were a bit out-of-whack.

I just hope that all of this extra coverage & the new opportunities for Republicans to spread the crazy doesn’t result in alienating independents for the eventual nominee.

Bloomberg is Scared

He commissioned a poll, which isn’t cheap, to try to defeat National Concealed Carry Reciprocity, HR822. It comes with a brand new web site. When I first clicked on it, I thought maybe the individuals were MAIG mayors, since I believe MAIG mayors have also been convicted of all those things, and at greater rates than concealed carry license holders.

Remember, if your mayor is in MAIG, it’s time to get him or her out. They are putting their names on opposing your rights. It should be made abundantly clear to MAIG mayors that they are supporting gun control. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.

It’s interesting, because you can see the poll results here. 35% favor the bill. 38% oppose. 28% are undecided. This poll actually doesn’t look good at all for MAIG, so I’m not sure why they are publishing it. The politicians know quite well that overwhelming majorities support the phony assault weapons ban back in 1994, and Democrats still got their asses handed to them when it came time to put people in the voting booths.

NRA Needs to Shorten the Leash on their Fundraising People

We had a pretty good narrative going there about our opponents using 9/11, and then someone at NRA had to jump in and ruin the party by doing something stupid. The anti-gun groups are busy shaming NRA for using the 9/11 anniversary to fundraise for itself, and they are right to. If you’re going to do a fundraising mailer, or e-mailer, using 9/11 as your catch, you ought to at least make sure it’s clear that money is going to be earmarked for programs that benefit our soldiers and/or first responders. Otherwise it’s just poor taste.

Another Open Carry Dust-up

From Rob Pincus:

I think Open Carry is a poor choice in populated areas when you have other options (CCW) to be armed for personal protection. I vehemently believe that you should NOT carry a gun for political reasons, but solely as a means of defense.

Snarkybytes doesn’t like Pincus’s statement at all. Uncle is somewhere in the middle. I’m not willing to say that carrying for a political purpose is wrong. My message has generally been to just be smart about how you go about it. That only part of Rob Pincus’ statement I really agree with is that OC is a poor choice in populated areas looking at it strictly from a tactical point of view, unless you’re carrying in a holster with proper retention and have had some level of retention training. That’s not, IMHO, a justification for banning the practice, but personally, it’s not something I’d be comfortable doing absent retention training.

Here’s my real problem with suggesting that carrying for political purposes is wrong. It could end up being that the Supreme Court rules that open carry is constitutionally protected, but not concealed carry. There are a few state right to keep and bear arms cases that mirror this position. While I think it’s probably more likely the Court will just protect carry, and leave to the states the manner in which they choose to regulate the practice, there is a chance they could adopt the position that only open carry is protected activity, and that as long as it’s allowed, the states can ban concealed carry.

If that’s the case, we’re going to need people to carry for political reasons, while state and local authorities in hostile jurisdictions are taught a lesson in exactly what “right” entails. Those early individuals are going to be carrying more for political reasons than reasons of self-protection. It’s hard for me to see, however, why that would be wrong.

A Futile Attempt to Become Understood

Joe Huffman has spoken at great lengths about our opponents inability to distinguish Truth from Falsity. To be fair, I don’t think that applies to all our opponents, but certainly many of them we’ve encountered in the wilds of the Internet. This has me wondering if they can even comprehend our arguments at all. I’m not sure how there can be a dialog when there’s not even a basic grasp of the subject matter at hand, or any real understanding of what we believe at all:

And so, dear readers, I have argued that someone with a loaded gun in a public place will not be able to save the day to protect themselves or others for some of the very reasons expressed in the comments above. I mean, the shooter might have an overwhelming arsenal making your pistol ineffective; people freeze up and can’t believe it’s happening; this is a perfectly normal human reaction; the police are actually trained to deal with situations like this and permit holders are not necessarily, etc. etc. It is amusing to watch these folks turn themselves into pretzels to argue withÂ commonÂ senseÂ and then saycommon senseÂ things themselves.

The problem is, our dear Brady Board member has erected all manner of straw men in her head about what gun owners believe, and virtually none of it is fact. She believes in a caricature of gun owners, and desperately wants to cling to that caricature, no matter how often the fairly rich tapestry of our lot walks by her virtual playground on a regular basis. Understand that most of us are not trying to be mean, nor do we expect that she’ll come around to agree with us. I think the reason people waste their hours attempting to comment on Common Gunsense is that they want to be understood. They don’t expect agreement, or capitulation, rather they are looking for that point where each side understands the other, and there at least is agreement to disagree. The great frustration with so many of the folks on the other side of our issue is, there’s not really any hope of reaching that point.

I have come to the conclusion that trying to get to that point of understanding with her, and people like her, is a futile act. They are either incapable, or unwilling to come to that understanding.