California is going after makers of repair kits, notes Dave Hardy. I really think at some point we’re going to need pre-clearance for some states, like we’ve had for the voting rights act. Congress needs to being these states into line. Most civil rights in our history haven’t been all that well protected by the courts. I has often taken congressional enforcement to actually do most of the heavy lifting, and I think some of these states may, in fact, require something like that. Just look at how hard it was to drag the Illinois legislature kicking and screaming in the face of a court order to modify their unconstitutional law?
Month: June 2013
Wednesday News Links
I’ve been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, and Scandalpalooza is still all in the news, but there’s still at least some stories to be linked.
Katee Sackhoff of “Battlestar Galactica” fame says she lost half her Twitter followers because of a comment about gun safety. Thirdpower has more.
We’re going to have a ballot fight on our hands in Washington State. Ballot fights are bad news, especially because we’re up against someone who has the money to fight them. That’s why I’m skeptical of Gary Johnson’s move to try to repeal Colorado’s gun law through the ballot. If this fails, you’ll never get rid of it.
Speaking of Colorado, it seems Hickenlooper is, in fact, Bloomberg’s puppet.
Is Mayor Bloomber’s MAIG anti-gun? Well, at least now he’s admitting it.
Biden is bidding to restart the gun control push. Well, I guess the White House figures it’s a good distraction from Scandalpalooza.
Bloomberg is targeting donors to pro-gun Democrats, and trying to get them to stop donating. Bloomberg is figuring that if he can’t drive Republicans in the gun debate, he can at least kill any pro-gun sentiment in the Democratic Party. If he’s successful in that, it’ll only be a matter of time, since there won’t be one party in power forever.
Maine almost voted for Constitutional Carry in the House.
A disabled shooter finally gets to shoot for the first time in 11 years. Comments on reddit seem mostly positive. The company that makes those rigs is here.
More anti-gun grassroots. I’ve seen more people than that at my club meetings.
Also, see this post on credibility in the blog world. More from SayUncle on the subject.
Growing the Astroturf
Miguel calls the head of Mom’s Demand Action the plastic gardener, noting her background as a PR professional. The question isn’t so much whether she has a PR background, but whether she’s a political hack. Shannon Watts doesn’t look like the same kind of hack as Donna Dees-Thomases, who was a closely tied to the Clintons and the media. It’s the fact that Dees-Thomases was a political hack that destroyed the narrative. Someone with a PR background can still be a stay-at-home mom from New Jersey or Indiana, but to suggest someone with close ties to the Clinton Administration is just some ordinary, concerned stay-at-home mom defies credulity. The question with Shannon Watts is who she is politically, and not so much what she did in her professional life, and I’m not sure any of the cases I’ve seen against Watts paint her to be connected at the same level as Dees-Thomases.
Producing the Next Generation of Gun Owners
Yesterday, I was invited to check out the facilities of a Boy Scout reservation that has benefited from a few grants funded by Eastern Pennsylvania Friends of NRA. All I can say is wow. Wow.
It’s not that their facilities (shooting or otherwise) are the fanciest or most amazing I’ve ever seen. It’s the creativity and ingenuity of making every dime their shooting program receives go as far as it possibly can. It’s the fact that many of their campers come from out-of-state – states like Maryland, New Jersey, and New York – so this camp is often the only opportunity the gun community has to reach these boys. It’s the fact that regardless of the fact that they don’t have the facilities to serve special needs and disabled kids, their organizers put their heads together to make it happen and got those boys their rifle merit badges.
Seeing all the ways that they have had to problem solve with limited or restricted funds is mind-blowing, but hearing their hopes for expanding and improving the facilities to focus on accommodating more scouts is just plain impressive. Unfortunately, they can only do it if they receive the funding for it. And this is why I volunteer.
Because more than 5,000 boys from around the PA/NJ/NY/MD area go through this camp every summer. Think about that. More than 5,000 boys have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of shooting safely and get a chance to learn about the joys of the shooting sports every single summer because of this one camp.
Of course, rifle and shotgun shooting aren’t the only thing this camp offers. There’s archery, rock climbing, swimming, fishing, paintball, and even a science building. Apparently, the number of merit badges that can be earned at this one location are pretty ridiculous compared to other camps.
OFA Out with Rallies in Pennsylvania Again
It looks like the Obama machine is trying to distract from the list of scandals piling up, and they are out to rally for gun control again. They’ve got several events in Southeast PA, specifically geared to drive photo ops for press.
If you’re in Rep. Pat Meehan’s district, why not give his office a call on that day and let the staff know that pro-gun voters turn out when it matters – at the polls. The number for the office to be protested is (610) 690-7323.
I’m curious if the turnout will be similar to this Illinois anti-gun rally.
UPDATE: Adding two more SE Pennsylvania events.
Big Push for Hunting in Pennsylvania
It looks like Pennsylvania’s ban on Sunday hunting is going to be challenged in the courts since the legislature refuses to act. The suit will apparently be brought on rather interesting grounds:
Specifically, the letter says “the prohibition on hunting certain species on Sunday” is “unconstitutional under the First, Second and 14th amendments to the United States Constitution.”
And on a somewhat related note, some new partnership to highlight the economic benefits of hunting is launching at the State Capitol tomorrow.
I actually think that the economic benefits of hunting are under utilized as talking points in the Second Amendment community. We look at gun sales data and think nothing of using those data points, but hunting is one of our community’s sports that requires far more than just a gun and ammunition. The equipment and trips drive quite a bit of money into government coffers. That should be highlight just like other economic indicators in the sports.
In fact, I think it would be handy if more groups that sanction, run, or really do any kind of formal organizing of shooting sports did some economic impact studies. Hell, even local gun clubs could just do some not-so-scientific polling of their members to get an idea of what kind of economic impact they have on the local communities, and that can be used when talking to lawmakers about why it’s good to avoid restrictions on our rights.
Binders Full of Women vs. Underage Prostitutes
I’m a woman, and I’m having some trouble following the media narrative on women’s issues in politics. If I’m following it correctly, I believe these are the highlights:
1) I am under attack in a war that has been declared on my gender.
2) Those attacks are only from men who may want to tell me about how to use my reproductive organs to make babies, but not by the men who want to restrict my right to defend myself from a rapist who may want to make use of said reproductive organs without my consent.
3) I attended an all-woman college that was founded on the principles that women, even those of very modest means, could contribute more to society than just pleasing men and required high academic standards for women of the day. Yet, in the last election, the message to women on campus was that the only way to define a woman’s role in elections is through the interest of her reproductive organs (that she should not be able to protect from assault using a personal firearm).
4) The candidate for president who made a remark about seeking out qualified women for administration jobs was the leader of the opposition in this war on women, but the President who appointed an ambassador who may have been screwing underage girls is absolutely on the side of women. Oh, and since the Department of State was under the leadership of a woman (who also attended a single sex institution), it’s okay that investigators looking into these allegations were ordered to stop their work.
I’m just making sure that I’m able to keep up. Maybe it’s because I’m in a relationship with a neanderthal gun owner that I’m a little slow to keep up on these complex matters. According to the media, this should all be clear to me (and my reproductive organs that define who I am). Regardless of what they tell me, I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around this so-called war.
The New Realities
Jim Geraghty made this remark in light of the NSA spying leaks: “Of course, you can do the right thing and still break the law.”
Meanwhile, Sesame Street debuts an education kit for helping kids deal with an incarcerated parent.
Clearly, there’s not such an epidemic of questionable spying document dumping in this country that these two things are directly related, but I don’t think they are completely unrelated, either. It’s a sad day when we pretty much joke about how practically everyone is a criminal these days because they’ve probably cross some regulation they never even knew existed.
It reminds me of a Kindle book my mom bought me that I really need to read soon: Trapped: When Acting Ethically is Against the Law
Unfortunately, since the answers to these issues don’t fit into a soundbite, don’t expect any serious discussions about the topic from our political leaders.
A Free Speech Issue or a Funding Issue?
Opponents of the NRA-backed anti-Bloomberg bill in Kansas are using free speech arguments against the bill. I think state and municipal employees have all the free speech rights they want, off the clock. What they don’t have is a right to spend my tax dollars lobbying to undermine my rights. As was mentioned when this bill first came up, Bloomberg had been using taxpayer subsidized professionals to lobby against your Second Amendment rights. This ought to stop, and the Kansas bill is hopefully the first of many.
Project Much?
I normally don’t publish letters to the editor, because most of them don’t often have any particular insight, and are often factually challenged. Every once in a while though, I have to make an exception. Because this guy was apparently a raging sociopath of a four year old, apparently the rest of us aren’t responsible enough to teach gun safety to our children.
Five-year-olds today are no more mature than I was, and the NRA thinks that’s the ideal time to begin teaching children about guns.
You gotta be kidding me.
I’m pretty sure as a five year old I knew not to hurt other children. Also, no one is talking about handing guns, BB or otherwise, to five year olds and telling them to go to town. But five is not too soon to talk to kids about gun safety. In fact, if you have guns in the house, you have a responsibility to teach your kids to be safe around them.