Month: March 2014

The Senate is balking on Vivek Murthy, reports the New York Times, and also The Hill. The NY Times notes:

“We are recalibrating our strategy around his floor vote,” said one senior White House official, who added that a range of options was being discussed. They included working with Democratic leaders to gain more support, delaying a vote until after the midterm elections, or allowing Dr. Murthy to withdraw.

They’re screwed no matter how they want to spin this. They’ve been put in a tough spot. I was kind of skeptical Surgeon General, an office I don’t think anyone pays attention to, was worth a fight over, but this seems to have worked out well so far.

See here. The language essentially freezes all assets of certain Russian persons that are held within the jurisdiction of the United States, including persons “to operate in the arms or related materiel sector in the Russian Federation.” It also prevents them from entering the country. I’m not certain whether this would affect firearm and ammunition imports, but my reading of it suggests that it does. I am not familiar enough with the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to know for sure. It would seem that ammunition within the country already is fine, because it’s your property, or the property of the ammo dealer. Whether Wolf, which is a domestic corporation, is affected, I do not know. It would seem it would depend on whether any Russian Oligarchs own it. But either way, my reading of this suggests that it would be unlawful for anyone to purchase ammunition from Tula, which Wolf needs to do to stay in business.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Politico suggests that no, it only targets personal assets.

American officials stressed Monday morning that they were going after only the private finances of the people targeted, and not their business interests, with the hope that this strategy — done in coordination with travel restrictions and parallel moves by European Union member countries — will increase pressure on Putin.

Though, the EO reads differently.

It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to blog, but a lot has built up in the tabs. I may have a few separate posts in those tabs somewhere, but sometime I just link everything out in the news dump and see what items I have more to say about than I thought. They become separate posts. So here we go:

The magazine limit reduction in NJ has cleared its first hurdle. I guess lawmakers don’t have any problem saying no to a little girl.

Another mass knife murder in China. Six dead. Clearly the last one inspired a copycat incident.

Bob Owens notes that three people were arrested for violating a local ordinance on Open Carry in Missouri. Missouri’s preemption statute is pretty iron clad, so the arrest was completely illegal. Actually, it seems like OC is one exception to MO preemption. Wow. That does need to be fixed.

The NRA notes that the gun control supporters are bound to take advantage of the inflation of causes of death by the UN, which are generally adopted by the CDC.

Also from NRA, they have filed an amicus brief in the NSA spying case.

Why smart guns are a dumb idea.

Governor Malloy in CT: Your side lost. Arrogant prick.

Cuomo scared to call special elections?

Celebrating 15 years of making gun control supporters wet their pants.

What can metadata reveal about you? Personally, I’m not as concerned if people can find out I’m a gun owner. It’s not really that hard. Just ask the mailman. The concern is if they have a record of what I own.

Jeff also notes that the Wall Street Journal did a hit piece on the gun industry. Of course, what they don’t point out is that unlike cigarettes, the discipline instilled by the shooting sports are good for kids.

Who really designed the AK-47? To be fair, both sides used German scientists and engineers for cold war projects, including our space programs.

Doctors can advise me about guns when they learn to keep their booger hooks off the bang switch.

Tam: “I’m not making a statement; I just want a sammich” I think it’s the same thing that makes people carry AR-15s in to Starbucks.

Prince Law has more on the Sunnyvale case. That Kennedy didn’t enjoin Sunnyvale is not surprising. My understanding is those kinds of injunctions are very rarely issues. What was surprising is that he asked for a response.

The Daily Caller on the Connecticut situation. I hope they aren’t foolish enough to go door to door. They have the ability if they decide to compile the list.

Town in NY tries to shut down anti-SAFE Act sign.

Good write up on MAIG. Glenn Reynolds notes, “To be fair, not all of them are felons, as far as we know.”