Sebastian – Page 1507 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Full Auto Day

I’ve decided that today is going to be Full Auto Day here at Snowflakes in Hell. Today, our posts will be dedicated to one of the most influential inventions of the 20th century: the machine gun. I’ll have lots of video, pics, and commentary. Fun for the whole family. Posts will come out about once an hour, and I’ll wrap up the day with a post about The Hughes Amendment, why it sucks, and why we really have to figure out a way to get rid of it.

Those of you with RSS feeds got a preview, because I was an idiot and forgot to check the “Edit Time Stamp” checkbox in WordPress. I hope you will enjoy.

A Reply to Karen Heller

I will take up Bitter’s challenge on dealing with Ms. Heller of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Rather than a fisking, I think a nicely worded letter is in order. Something that will hopefully at least make her think a little. Here goes:

Ms. Heller,

I read your article entitled “Where’s the Outrage About Gun Violence” in Sunday’s online edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer. I would like you to know that we’re all outraged by the gun violence that’s plaguing the City of Philadelphia, and I believe it a bit unfair of you to insinuate that those of us who enjoy the shooting sports, gun collecting, hunting, and those of us who own firearms for lawful self-defense, simply don’t care about the problem. This is not true. We simply have a difference of opinion about effective ways to deal with violence.

You support gun control, no doubt. We believe that is ineffective, and instead suggest that the focus be on putting more police on the streets, and getting violent individuals off the street. The City of Philadelphia does not have a gun problem, the City of Philadelphia has a criminal problem, and focusing your attention on inanimate objects, which can be used for good or ill, depending on what’s in the heart of the person possessing it, will not help make things better.

I ask you to think for a minute about how laws restricting firearms will affect people who have such callous disregard for human life that they will murder and terrorize their fellow citizens. Will such a person be any more willing to obey a gun control law, when they refuse to obey even the most sacrosanct laws of a civilized society? Would we be able to keep criminals from obtaining guns on the black market any more effectively than we currently keep people from obtaining drugs on the black market? What effect can gun laws have other than preventing people, who are just trying to enjoy a sport or protect their families, from obtaining them? I don’t think we are unreasonable people for asking these kinds of questions of those demanding our constitutional rights be trampled on.

I know we will probably never see eye to eye on this issue, but I would hope that you can at least afford us a little more respect and dignity than was displayed in your article this Sunday. We are not uncaring monsters. We are not irresponsible people. We are ordinary folks who get up, go to work, raise families, and try to make ends meet. Because we choose to exercise our constitutional right to own firearms for sport and self-defense, and jealously guard that right, does not mean we don’t care about the four hundred and six victims of crime this year in the city, and doesn’t mean we’re not also suggesting solutions. We just want to be treated fairly.

Respectfully,

Sebastian
Bucks County, PA

You can always get farther with honey than you can with vinegar, and always do better making someone regret their anger, rather than writing something that will help them justify it. I hope this makes Ms. Heller think. I doubt it will change her mind, but at the very least think. Thinking is a start.

Removing Cosmoline

Bruce of mAss Backwards has a great post on how to remove cosmoline from a new rifle; a problem we’ve all had to face at one time or another. I think we all remember Easy Bake Ovens. Same principle, applied to guns.

UPDATE: I didn’t try Bruce’s easy bake oven for rifles, but the oven did the trick for me.Â There are advantages to living alone :)Â I have the Mosin-Nagant nearly ready to shoot, and will have to do a range report in a few days.

Interesting Shooting Videos

Conservative Scalawag has some links to a few shooting videos, as well as some commentary. When say shooting, I mean these are actual shootings, of the self-defense variety. Most of us will never be so unfortunate to ever find ourselves in the situations these gentlemen do, but since we are people who sometimes go about armed, it’s important to study, learn, and to remind ourselves from time to time that self-defense with a firearm is a deadly, ugly business.

First the good:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=3AA_dgRdDhk[/youtube]

This was a bad situation to begin with, the kid being on the counter.Â Truth be told, I wouldn’t blame anyone who decided, with the kid in the possible line of fire, the best thing is just to let the robbery progress and hope no one gets hurt. But we can’t see what the Robber is saying or how he’s behaving, and robberies can turn sour quite rapidly.Â For whatever reason, we don’t know, the clerk made the decision to shoot. The clerk smartly uses the woman to shield his draw from the robber, then surprises him, probably while his focus is on the register. Looks like his shots managed to find their mark, because you can see him covering the robber on the ground. It looks like this guy had thought about what he would do, trained, and executed it brilliantly.

Now for the not so good:

[youtube crtc7AN_Fxc]

I don’t like to ding anyone’s performance in a situation that’s fluid, charged full of adrenaline, and something that no one can ever prepare enough to find themselves in. But I think it’s important to try to look at what happened, so we can learn from it. To me it looks like he didn’t realize the guys had run off, and was taking un-aimed, blind shots over his concealment until he realized he wasn’t shooting at anything. If the robbers had decided to get into a shootout with him, he very well may be dead with an empty magazine. Wild, poorly aimed shots don’t end gunfights. Hits end gunfights. I think the lesson here is that we need to look at our environment. What’s cover, and what’s concealment in areas you frequent? We probably all need to practice shooting from cover more often that we do, and think about what we’d do in different situations. The unexpected will happen, but in a gunfight, having a gun helps, but having a plans helps more. Which one of these guys do you think had the better plan?

The “Gun Show Loophole”

The anti-gun people in Virginia must really have an extra special hatred for gun shows, because whenever I hear trouble in regards to shows, it seems to emanate from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Bitter points out that it’s Republicans causing the trouble this time. Wait, wasn’t Republican Mike Castle trying to close the gun show loophole as well? And John McCain is also a well known advocate, no?

I hate to say it folks, but this might have a chance of passing at some point, because I think Republicans might be selling us out on this issue. What makes the proposals on the table so virulent, is that they are specifically targeting guns shows with the intent of harassing them out of existence. This isn’t just about ending private transfers, or background checks. They are specifically targeting shows. I’m convinced this is a calculated strategic move on the part of the antis. Why?

Gun shows are a great place for people like us to organize and recruit
It’s easy to scare the general public about them. Most people will have no idea that “unlicensed dealers” the anti-gun folks mention at shows are people not selling firearms.
For people who are real firearms enthusiasts, shooters and collectors, it’s the only place you can go to find the things you need or are looking for easily. We’re not allowed to mail order guns anymore, unless you have an Federal Firearms License. Ammunition can be tough to find in your local gun shop, especially if you’re shooting rifles in obscure calibers. Mail ordering ammunition can be expensive because it’s heavy.
They help the shooting industry and community by providing an environment where people can see a wide range of products on the market, and get ideas for future purchases.

For all these reasons, the antis desperately want to get rid of them. Don’t buy any notions that this is about keeping guns out of criminal hands. It is not, and I’m convinced they are aware of this. Gun shows account for 1% of guns that end up used in crime. They are targeting gun shows because they are an important part of keeping our community healthy, and if they can put an end to them, it’ll reduce our numbers, effectiveness, and eventually make it easy to start pushing us back politically, until they finally get what they want. And we all know what that is. The leaders of the movement are not stupid. They know where we’re vulnerable, and they will attack us in those areas. This is one of them, and we can’t let them win.

Record Day

For a blog that’s only a week old, I’m rather pleased to have a record day of 500 hits from 280 hosts with 300 visitors and 330 sessions.Â For everyone who visited or visits, I hope you will come back again, and maybe be a regular reader.

I’d also like to announce another blogroll addition. Â Conservative Scalawag

He has a few videos on his blog that I thought were interesting.Â The posts will come up tomorrow morning.

Bearing Arms

Bitter has a post on bearing arms, or maybe that’s arming bears.

Mr. and Mrs. Massachusetts, Turn Them All In

No, they aren’t banning real guns yet. They are talking about banning BB guns:

In fact, these politicians not only plan to ban BB guns in Massachusetts, they’re sending letters to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island to ask those states to do the same.

In the words of one of these anti-gun politicians, their goal is to make “New England an area free of pellet guns and BB guns.”

The article doesn’t mention which special interest group is behind this legislation, but I have one theory:

Image:Squirrel with nut.jpg

Rendell Sworn-In for Another Four

Ed Rendell was sworn in today for four more years in the governor’s mansion.Â Rendell, as Mayor of Philadelphia, was one of the original group of mayors that came up with the novel idea of suing gun manufacturers under the theory that their product was a public nuisance.Â As governor, he’s given some lip service to the one-gun-per-month bills that the city politicians keep wanting to pass, but has largely kept quiet on his opinions on gun control.Â Aside from his position on that issue, he’s outlined some things I can get behind:

He broke new ground with his promise to overhaul the state’s open-records law, which many right-to-know advocates regard as archaic because it limits public access to specific categories of records rather than opening all records to public scrutiny except for specific exceptions.

I’m generally in favor of public records being as public as possible, with some notable exceptions.Â We will need to make sure that if this happens certain types of records (you know the ones) don’t get made public.Â I’m also enthusiastic about this:

His proposal to choose state appellate judges through a merit-selection process — a cause that critics of the current elective system have promoted for more than a decade — also came without warning.

I’ve never thought it a good idea to elect appelate judges.Â Judges should be separated from politics as much as possible.Â I’ll support this one.Â Even though I doubt this “merit-selection” process will be apolitical.Â There’s also a propsal in his inaugural address to put redistrcting to referendum.Â I have no idea how you’d make something like that work.Â I think there are better ways to deal with that issue, and don’t believe democracy is really going to work there.Â Hey Ed, some tax relief would be nice too!

Nutty Nutter Can Frisk This

We’re going to have fun with a name like Nutter. Especially when you start talking about crapping all over everyone’s civil liberties. For now on, Michael Nutter will be called one of the following “Nutty Nutter”, “Nutcase”, or in the case of referring to him as a possible winner “Mayor Nut”.
Of Arms and the Law links to a Philadelphia Inquirer article that previews some of Nutcase’s crime plans, which look suspiciously like every other mayoral candidates, except his would be done under the auspices of a “Crime Emergency”, which would give Mayor Nut extra special powers:

If such a declaration was made, the city would be empowered to limit or prohibit sidewalk or other outdoor gatherings; halt or limit cars and trucks within targeted neighborhoods; establish a curfew; and prohibit anyone from publicly selling, carrying or possessing any weapons.

To hell with the law if you want to be Philadelphia mayor! First time I get harassed by Mayor Nuts’ goons for lawfully posessing a firearm, I can promise them a giant lawsuit. If this gets beyond a lot of hot air, I think it’s time for us in Pennsylvania to make it a criminal offense for city and local government officials to interfere with the civil rights of Pennsylvanians. These clowns that want to be mayor might think twice if they were looking at fines and jail time for carrying stuff like this out.

I’m seirous about Dwight Evans looking like the best candidate so far, and that’s a sad statement on the state of the mayoral race in Philadelphia.