October 2012 – Page 10 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Tab Clearing

For the first time in a while, I have a lot of tabs worth sharing. If I forget a hat tip here, my apologies. I’ve had some of these open for a while, and might have forgotten where I got them from:

Why Polariod was the Apple of its Time.

Aircraft Carriers in Space. What Science fiction gets wrong and right about combat in space.

Local story. School board member brings gun to school. Prosecutors decline to prosecute. Other school board members in hysterics that another member might have a gun at school board meeting. Preemption violation suggested. I would have said “I have a license to carry, deal with it,” which is why I couldn’t hold on to any public office.

The Swiss are undergoing military exercises. What could they possibly be worried about? Oh yeah.

Some people’s deaths are worth celebrating. (Hat tip Instapundit.)

We’re worried about lead ammunition killing a few birds …

… and meanwhile, we’re letting murder cats roam free.

Military and Personal Arms for Soldiers

A few years ago there were military commanders that were hostile to the idea of their soldiers having private arms, and tried to do everything in their power to discourage their soldiers from keeping their private arms, or outright forbade it in some circumstances. NRA got language inserted into a budget bill to prevent army commanders from maintaining records of private arms, or asking about them. That also prevented Â commanders from inquiring about firearms ownership for soldiers that were suicidal. There’s a move to alter the language to allow military commanders to inquire about private arms for cases where they have reasonable grounds that a person is high risk for suicide, provided there is no power to confiscate said private arms. Extrano’s Alley thinks all this fuss is to miss the point that the high suicide rate among members of the military is due to low morale. I tend to agree, but I don’t frankly have a problem if military personnel ask about personal firearms in the context of suicide risk, provided they can’t order confiscation of them.

New York Times Covers 3D Printing for Guns

I was surprised to see something like this in the paper of making up the record, but I have to admit, the publicity Cody Wilson has generated with the WikiWeapon has been stellar. The Times overstates what the technology is currently capable of, but it’s getting better and cheaper. I think it will be some time before you can print a barrel. But the Times basically admits this technology will be impossible to control, though stop short of suggesting gun control is obsolete. As I mentioned, Wilson does run into the issue of the Undetectable Firearms Act, when it comes to making a firearm solely from plastic, or even mostly from plastic. But criminals will not be so encumbered, and the technology will continue to progress regardless of what the American government has outlawed.

Chicago Tribune All But Accuses NRA of Stabbing Obama in the Back

This is beyond the pale:

When he ran in 2008, Barack Obama sang from the National Rifle Association hymnal: “I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in peopleâ€™s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I wonâ€™t take your handgun away.”

It’s not surprising to see an interest group oppose a politician who breaks a promise. But the NRA is punishing one who kept his. This week, the group endorsed Mitt Romney.

So Obama never threatened to re-impose the ban on semi-automatic rifles disingenuously known as the “assault weapons ban?” He didn’t jeopardize the most important project we face right now, to define the scope of the Second Amendment in the courts, by appointing one justice who already voted to redact the Second Amendment from the Constitution, and another who likely will follow along as well? And the Obama Administration has certainly not worked with the UN to lay the groundwork for UN control over international trade in small arms? The Tribune acts like we’re insane to think anything other than confiscation matters.

OK, so Obama promised not to start a bloody civil war over by promising not to unlawfully confiscate private arms. That was never even on the table as a possibility, and it’s not a promise that was remotely hard for the President to keep. This is a straw man. It’s not the issue. The issue is that, objectively, Obama has put the Second Amendment in grave jeopardy though his court appointments, and is still on record as supporting banning the sale of a broad category of popular and common firearms. The case could be made that perhaps Romney didn’t deserve an endorsement either (given the Court risks, it’s not one I’d make this election cycle, but the case can be made), but that’s not what the Tribune has argued here. Sometimes I wonder if the media are just so many fools, or whether they think we’re fools.

The Space Cadets of the Gun Control Movement

Much like how satellites can be launched into various orbits, from low earth orbit all the way up to geostationary orbit, the gun control movement kind of works the same way. In the low orbit, you have MAIG, who mostly operate near to earth reality. The Brady Campaign have quite recently been firing their boosters to increase their orbital radius to more closely match that of CSGV. But there’s one group who just kept firing their booster, and is now headed out into deep space. That group is National Gun Victims Action Council, and Miguel has the latest coming back from the outer limits, and so does Thirdpower. No intelligent life to be found yet.

Illinois Democrats Beating The Gun Control Drum

Looks like someone in the Illinois Democratic Party has decided that gun control is a hill they are ready to die on.* This time they are taking advantage of the fact that people who don’t own guns, and generally even people who do, don’t know what the gun laws are. Illinois requires licensing for all gun owners, in the form of an FOID card. To sell a gun to someone, they must also possess an FOID card. The system allows for private transfers, because the license is proof you’re eligible. Illinois attempted to pass background checks for private sales on top of the licensing requirement, and now the Democrats are spinning that as a vote against background checks. It might be technically true, but it’s awfully disingenuous in a state where you can’t legally possess a firearm without a license that requires a background check to obtain, and is revoked upon committing a crime.

* Again, the standard disclaimer for those on the other side that this is a metaphor, perhaps one quickly developing, in the standard business buzzword vernacular, into a cliche. I recognize that many professional activists and community organizers in the gun control movement have never held a “real job” for most of their careers, and may not be up on the current business buzzwords, of which “I don’t want to die on that hill,” is certainly one. But literally, no one will be dying on any hills, and if I say we should “touch base later” (definitely a cliche now), it doesn’t mean anything dirty or immoral. In the mean time I encourage you to channel some core competencies to drive a media synergy that leverages new paradigms, rather than thinking you’ve found some kind of insurrectionist gotcha.

How Close is Pennsylvania – Really?

I’ve been pretty vocal about people who are just absolutely convinced that the GOP candidates for Senate & President will win Pennsylvania. Usually this is because everyone they know – who just happens to lean right – is going to vote for candidates on the right. Shocking. It’s a matter of selection bias, and it isn’t based in reality.

However, there are some things I’m seeing that leave me wondering if the polls are actually showing a much wider gap than really exists. One is a graphic Mitt recently posted on Facebook that noted his campaign has made 5 times as many phone calls and knocked on 45 times more doors by this time in the campaign than McCain’s team had in 2008.

Consider that Mitt’s got that much higher turnout of grassroots energy and he hasn’t been spending the money here like McCain did. McCain was spending like Pennsylvania was a seriously competitive state. Both campaigns have largely been ignoring Pennsylvania. Though Mitt did test the waters a bit with a big rally in one of the Philly suburbs recently.

But then I also see tweets like this from the left.

Just spoke to a few hundred excited volunteers from New York all members of SEIU. In Philly to canvass for The President #forward 2012

â€” Tony Payton Jr. (@TonyPaytonJr) October 6, 2012

Fun times in Hazleton! Thanks @ofa_ny for the good times and hard knocks!#pa2012 instagr.am/p/P5R5SEIfTU/ â€” Jane Slusser (@janeslusser) September 22, 2012

It seems odd to me that the Obama campaign would spend the money to bring in New Yorkers for a state that they are so confident they’ll win – and win big.

One thing that these little signs could reflect is that the polls have poor turnout models. Yes, truly more people may like Obama over Romney in Pennsylvania. But, the Obama voters may not feel very motivated at all to vote. And clearly Romney’s campaign has more energy than expected.

This year may be the year of quiet campaigning in Pennsylvania. We’re seeing far fewer yard signs out this year than any other year – even non-presidential races. In fact, where there were previously dozens, now there are none. Yet, we still hear from most people on the right that they are more motivated to vote than they were before. We also have more gun owners interested in helping campaigns than we have had in the past. It’s all kinda weird. I think the final numbers have a potential to be far more interesting than the polls show. I won’t go so far as to say that Mitt will win Pennsylvania, but it could be a closer race than people expected based off polling.

55 Years of the U-2

Awesome video of the Lockheed U-2:

First flew in 1955, and entered service in 1957. Probably the most famous incident involving the plane was when Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 by an SA-2 Surface-to-Air missile. Lesser known is a shootdown by the same missile over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The CIA no longer operates the U-2, but the Air Force still does. They were intended to be largely replaced by the unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk, but there’s talk of canceling that program due to costs. It seems it may be cheaper to extend the life of the U-2 another 20 years to 2023, at which point the U-2 program is pushing 70. It’ll be up there with the B-52 Stratofortress, which entered service about the same time, and could quite possibly end up seeing 100 years of service.

Tweets Candidates Learn to Regret

When you’re a candidate running against an incumbent, there are usually qualities that people want to see in you – like the ability to identify and properly handle problems in a calm and reasonable manner. Because, let’s face it, if you’re elected, you’re going to be helping constituents with a lot of red tape and general bureaucratic messes. It would seem that Mike Starr, running for election to Minnesota’s 31st Senate seat, might not be the most qualified for handling problems in a calm and reasonable manner.

This is his very public response to getting a bad grade from NRA on his questionnaire:

~~It seems he has since tried to send the tweet down the memory hole~~, so I guess he learned that acceptable political rhetoric from a candidate rarely involves demands to “kiss [one’s] ass” directed at a major interest group for a key demographic.

Now, I’ve been involved with a campaign whose opponent was unfairly given an inflated grade and ignored in the endorsement process when it was a clear choice for gun owners in a winnable seat. You know how they handled it? Ask around and contacted NRA about the grades. Guess how NRA handled it? They reconsidered the race, acknowledged the need to revise the grade, and sent out postcards noting the correction. Don’t get me wrong, the internal folks were initially very upset with the situation. But, they didn’t react by cursing at NRA publicly.

On Starr’s website, he indicates he has previous grades of A & B from NRA. I went searching and found that he has run for office before, and his grade was already on the decline due to his answers on his questionnaires. More importantly, his grades were from years ago, not the most recent election cycle. The issue has fundamentally changed since he first answered a questionnaire. Heller, McDonald, the expiration of a federal gun ban – all monumental game changers that happened since he first answered NRA and his grade has fallen since those things started happening.

Now, I’m not arguing that NRA got it 100% right in this case because, clearly, I haven’t seen his responses. On the other hand, I can say that this type of outburst on behalf of his campaign account doesn’t exactly bode well for any gun owners who might want to talk to him about concerns about his positions. It looks like he would just tell them all to “kiss [his] ass” and walk away.

UPDATE: To Starr’s credit, his demand for gun owners to kiss his ass still stands. Twitter was just acting up and telling me the tweet was no longer there when I gathered the information for this post. Here’s the Twitter embed version:

@nrapvf As a 25 yr mil service member a gun owner, a coach for the HS Trap Tm spt C&C spt 2nd Amendment to get an “F” you can “KISS MY ASS”

— Mike Starr (@StarrforSenate) October 5, 2012