The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
From Jonah Goldberg’s “Tyranny of Cliches,” talking about the phoniness of many who abhor political labels:
The same goes for the fake nonideologues of the No Labels crowd. Michael Bloomberg is a nannying, statist bully who, much like Napoleon, hurls around charges of ideological ensorcellment as a way to delegitimize political opponents he cannot defeat in open debate.
Yeah, I’d say that about accurately describes the situation.
Steven Green was one of the first bloggers I started reading back before blogging was cool, and he pretty much echoes my views on Romney, not because Romney will save us, but because he’ll buy us time. There’s been some speculation as to whether time really buys anything, but I think it does. I am not certain whether we can avoid hitting the iceberg looming ahead, but I am pretty sure if we keep moving at this speed, we will definitely hit it. I’m happy to give someone a chance to slam the rudder hard to starboard and at least try to miss it.
Tam takes a visit to the Indiana World War Memorial and finds a few… err… problems. Part I, Part II, and Part III. Problems such as this:
The bottom piece is labeled as a “US Remington 1917 Rifle”. While it certainly was built by Remington in the United States in 1917, it is a Russian M1891 Mosin-Nagant, intended for the Czar’s armies fighting the Boche. Several technical problems interfered with delivery, however, such as Russia not paying, then chickening out of the war, then falling to fighting amongst themselves in November of that year. Pretty much the only Remington-built Mosins to ever see Mother Russia arrived there postwar in the hands of US doughboys who used them to shoot at Bolsheviks (which is a fine and good thing to do with a rifle.)
Read the whole thing, as they say.
Steve discussed the deal. Looks like they will get a makeover, but the content will stay the same. Steve has been proving that you can become a successful and popular commercial venture as a blog without being a dick about it, and for that, and also for his excellent content, we appreciate The Firearm Blog and wish them well with their new owners.
The media is in a tizzy. I’m not sure either of them want the subject to come up. Mitt isn’t going to want to revisit his ridiculous and incorrect signing statement to the Massachusetts bill he signed that was never an assault weapons ban, and Barry certainly doesn’t want to have to answer questions about gun control. I think it will tend to play in our favor, however, if the issue comes up. So why are the Bradys getting behind it?
I have a problem with candidates who don’t respond to NRA questionnaires. Regardless of how you might feel about individual legislative and political decisions by NRA, the fact remains that they are a known major interest group with hundreds of thousands of members who vote in Pennsylvania. An unwillingness to even acknowledge questions from such a grassroots organization doesn’t speak well for for their responsiveness to constituents – especially those with whom they might disagree.
So, imagine my surprise when I browsed the NRA-PVF grade listings last night and discovered that almost none of the races had grades for both candidates.
In the PA-13 Congressional District, I have 3 State Senate races and 14 State House races. Of the Senate races, only one has a challenger to the incumbent and the Republican refused to return the questionnaire. In the 14 House races, 11 feature challengers. In 3 of those 11, neither candidate was willing to respond to gun owner questions. In 1 of those 11, the GOP candidate alone remains ungraded. In 6 of the remaining races, the Democrats refused to answer questions. In only one race is there a grade for both candidates.
In the PA-8 Congressional District, Sebastian has 1 State Senate race and 14 State House races. His Senate race is the same as the one in PA-13, so it’s the same situation with the GOP candidate refusing to answer questions about his positions. In his 14 House races, only 10 have challengers. In those 10 races, only 2 of the races feature candidates who both earned grades. In the remaining 8, 1 race has both candidates refusing to answer questions. The final 7 are broken down in failures to be graded as 2 Republicans who refuse to answer and 5 Democrats who won’t be held accountable.
This is a rather disturbing trend of politicians who feel they don’t need to worry about answering to constituents.
If you’re in either of these Congressional Districts (or another area where you see the same trend), get in touch with the candidates at the local level and let them know that their refusal to answer even basic questions of policy disturbs you. Trust me, it makes an impression when voters let candidates know that they won’t support candidates who refuse to answer NRA questionnaires. Even going into his third election, our state representative has never forgotten to respond to NRA ever since his campaign manager screwed up his questionnaire in his first race. He did actually meet a voter who walked out of the polling booth and said he refused to vote for him because he wouldn’t even give a response to NRA. Now, that representative is always responsive to us as gun owner constituents, and he also happens to be A- rated and endorsed.
The Brady Campaign is outraged that the Daily Caller would dare raffle off a gun, and now they are demanding criminal charges be filed against NRA and Daily Caller by the New York and California Attorneys General. This is just an act of desperation, folks. A lame and naked attempt to be relevant, and to drum up buzz on the idea that NRA is evil and shady. First, I’m not sure why New York or California law would be at issue here, since there is no raffle that is occurring in either of those two states. The raffle is presumably happening in either Virginia or the District of Columbia, both of which have provisions for charitable gaming.
We should be glad to see the Brady Campaign and CSGV resorting to thug tactics. It means that’s all they have left.
They are recruiting a survivor of the Aurora mass shooting in order to push MAIG’s agenda, none of which would have done a damned thing to stop the Aurora shooting:
Barton said he hopes moderator Jim Lehrer asks the candidates about gun control, and specifically presses them on universal background checks, mental health services and bans on extended magazines and assault weapons.
“The bottom line is neither of [the candidates], in the wake of Aurora and Oak Creek, has shown any leadership on this issue in any specific way,†he said.
He would have passed any background check, because he simply did not have any contact with the mental health system that would have showed up in a background check. There is no law that is going to stop someone from buying a gun if they slip through the justice system or mental health system, and never get a record in NICS. No amount of gun control can make up for the fact that the mental health system is broken. When these mass killers consistently pass background checks, why is it that the victims are consistently signed up to push for proposals that just extend what already failed? Clearly doubling down on failure is smart public policy.
