A friend e-mailed a recommendation for this resource, which is a comprehensive guide to the gun laws of the 50 states done in a fairly non-technical manner.
Month: August 2012
The Laws Don’t Work, So Bloomberg Says We Need More Laws
Huffington Post has done an interview with King Bloomberg, replete with choice quotes:
“I don’t think there’s anybody, any rational person, that seriously could argue that what we have and the way we enforce it prohibits carnage,” he said. “There’s 34 people killed every single day [nationwide]. We’ve killed more than 400,000 Americans since 1968, when RFK and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. That is more Americans than died during WWII. So the argument that we can do with existing laws and stop this is just preposterous. It isn’t worth having a discussion about.”
So the laws on murder, which can earn you the death penalty in many states, don’t stop people from murdering each other, but a few extra gun control laws will do the trick? Sorry, but I don’t think there’s any rational person that doesn’t think Bloomberg’s assumption is full of excrement.
The American Hunger for More Gun Control
We keep hearing from the gun control people that this time will be different. The AP reports on a protest in Colorado by gun control advocates, “A small group of gun control advocates rallied outside the campaign stop at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.” Now, keep in mind this is the same media that’s been all too willing in the past to hide poor turnout at gun control protests, or inflate their numbers. So if the media is saying it’s a small group, it’s a small group. This is not what a national movement looks like. This is not an America that’s hungry for more gun control.
Primary Accountability
Debra Maggart was defeated by her primary opponent, pretty overwhelmingly. No word yet on whether her shrunken head will be added to the decor in Chris Cox’s office*. Word I heard from folks in Tennessee was that upon assuming a leadership position with the newly GOP house, she seemed to believe she could take gun owners for granted, and apparently wasn’t shy about telling them that. A strategy of primary challenging intransigent Republicans in an area where Democrats are also likely to be reasonable on the gun issue is a wise one.
* For our humor challenged friends in the gun control movement, this is what we call a joke. Chris Cox does not actually have a shrunken head collection in his office.
Government at Work
Gun Control Groups Putting Pressure on Scott Brown
They think they can get Brown to capitulate. They might be right. Scott Brown already stabbed us in the back on reciprocity:
An aide to the Massachusetts Republican said Brown believes that states are the appropriate venue for weapons bans. Brown said he supports Massachusetts’ assault weapons ban.
As much as people might be angry, and as much as I might disagree with Brown’s position here, because the Second Amendment is not a state to state kind of deal, you have to admit this guy has some room to be “not as bad as the other guy”, or woman, as the case may be. What do you think? Is it a victory to replace staunch anti-gun Senator and gun control leader Ted Kennedy with a Republican who’s wishy washy on gun rights at best? I don’t think Senator Brown should carry any further NRA endorsements, but I have to admit I’m having a hard time figuring out, if my alternative is another Ted Kennedy, why keeping Brown in that seat isn’t better for us overall.
Someone Call Hell & Check the Temperature
Maybe the former name of the blog is appropriate here because I’m starting to wonder if there’s a snowstorm brewing somewhere. There’s a newspaper column calling for less nanny-statism.
The story starts by highlighting a bar owner who isn’t quite making the minimum amount of revenue on food at this Roanoke bar. He has shown the bureaucrats overwhelming evidence that he has tried various marketing efforts to get food sales up enough to keep his mixed drink liquor license, but it just hasn’t hit the magic number yet. His license is being suspended, and he’s paying a fine for the “crime” of not selling enough food.
Back in May, I suggested that Markell create a new menu item: the $1,000 bologna sandwich entree, with sides of sliced beets and sauteed rutabagas. Markell could buy one for himself every time he needed a little boost to get over the food-sales hump.
Markell agrees that baloney is a fitting metaphor for many of the ridiculous regulations liquor licensees have to follow. But he has a more radical idea.
Why not simply let a bar be a bar?
“They keep saying Virginia has a great business environment, but if you want to have a neighborhood bar, that’s not true,” Markell said.
So here’s a suggestion for Virginia legislators, every one of whom claims to be pro-small business.
Act like that, and introduce legislation that repeals certain hard-to-fathom ABC laws.
Keep the stuff that makes some sense, such as the prohibition on serving minors and intoxicated patrons, and requiring bars to close by 2a.m. Keep forcing bars to buy their liquor from the ABC, which produces significant revenue for state coffers. Maintain the prohibition on nude dancing in licensed establishments. That’ll keep the prudes quiet.
But why are bars forbidden from hanging neon beer signs in windows, when they can fill their walls with branded-beer posters?
Why, during happy hour, can a patron order a pitcher of Bud – which can hold four beers – but he can’t have more than two individual beers on the bar at once?
Why can’t bars advertise happy hour specials on social media?
Why can’t anybody order pitchers of margaritas, ever? All mixed drinks in pitchers are illegal in Virginia.
That stuff and more should be repealed.
Go read the whole thing to get the full story behind the honest barkeep who is getting screwed by the unreasonable rules.
Hammer Attack
In New York City. Clearly Bloomberg isn’t doing enough to combat hammer violence. Maybe there should be some kind of licensing, both to own and carry a hammer. You’d think from much of the rhetoric of our opponents that man was never violent until the invention of the firearm.
Complains of NRA Out of Tennessee
Apparently some members are not too happy NRA is going after Debra Maggart. I’d say that if this isn’t a story cooked up by Maggart’s campaign, I’ll eat my hat. Even if NRA pissed me off enough to cause me to resign my life membership, I wouldn’t feel that was something worth going to the press about.
NRA is supporting a primary challenge against Maggart in the GOP primary.
I Did Not Go to Chick-Fil-A Today
The whole thing kind of angers me, really, because I think both sides are wrong. I support government recognizing homosexual couples having the same legal rights as heterosexual couples when it comes to marriage. But I also support the Cathy family, owners of Chick-Fil-A, having religious believes that compel them to support traditional marriage, and being able to hold fast to those beliefs without being victims of thuggery by the likes of Boston Mayor Tom “Mumbles” Menino and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.
And as for Mumbles and his partner in tyranny Rahm, there is a special spot in hell, as far as I’m concerned. Because what they did by engaging in their thuggish behavior was expand the pro-Chick-Fil-A coalition enough that the message being sent to Dan Cathy is that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking a strong and firm position on social issues.
Let me play a bit of Devil’s advocacy for those on the left for whom social issues like gay marriage are important. Rahm and Mumbles just screwed you guys by taking things a step too far. Whatever you may think, they are not your allies. They have energized the right coalition in ways you can’t imagine. First Amendment and small government advocates are rightly just as outraged as opponents of gay marriage in how Chick-Fil-A has been treated. If these people will wait in long lines to buy chicken, in large enough numbers that the chickens can’t be killed and deliciously deep fried fast enough, what do you think they are going to do in November?
Bill Clinton’s real political genius was in understanding and exploiting the divisions in the right coalition. After having his posterior handed to him in 1994, he did what he was best at doing; he triangulated. Clinton decided to concede on a large part of the right’s economic plan, and in some cases actively embraced it, and made it his own. He then proceeded to fight culture wars on social issues, and the GOP took the bait. Under the Clinton strategy, I watched the Philadelphia ring counties go from Republican (though never very socially conservative) strongholds to favoring center-left Democrats.
Today, having driven around to see how busy our Chick-Fil-As were, just half an hour before closing, I think I may be watching the death of the Clinton strategy. Not because this strategy doesn’t work, but because the hard-core urban leftists like Barack Obama just can’t help themselves. Like a lot of big city politicians, they don’t understand that the political landscape is really driven by suburbs, and those politicians are rapidly tearing the Clinton strategy to pieces in their ignorance.