Gun Rights – Page 381 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Forgive the vulgarity ….

…. but John Timoney can seriously go fuck himself. He apparently doesn’t take his oath to uphold the constitution of either his country or his state seriously at all, and he’s been peddling this stuff since he was busy screwing up Philadelphia’s police department and trying to crap on the constitutional rights of Pennsylvanians by arguing that the Pennsylvania constitution was no obstacle to the city of Philadelphia banning guns.

I’m sick of seeing that turd’s name attached to stories like this. Does anyone out there have a MythTV box? If so, do like Uncle said and get the best parts recorded. Preferably in high def. MythTV will encode in a format that can be more easily manipulated on a PC than a TiVO.

Last time Timoney and his buddies were pushing this nonsense we caught their lies red handed. Let’s do it again for ABC this time.

More On What They Think Of You

I can’t believe I missed this bit linked off the letters to the editor linked here:

What kind of nonsense is this that a person in Philadelphia can purchase even one gun a month? Police officers and innocent people are being murdered and wounded every day in Philadelphia. Why would civilians need to purchase more than one gun?

Damaris Martinez, Philadelphia

Of course, we’re told, when we suggest that “If they can ration to one a month, what’s to stop them from rationing to one a year? Or just one per person per lifetime?”,Â “That’s crazy gun nut talk! No one wants to do that.” Bullshit!

Gardiner on “Willful” Violations

Over at Red’s Trading Post, see some testimony by attorney Richard Gardiner from back when Congress was considering reigning in the ATF. You know, if the Democrats want to earn some good ju ju with gun owners, they could take this up again. Democrats are supposed to be for the little guy right? You don’t get much more “mom and pop” than most gun shops.

That demand for perfection is an impossible burden for anyone, including federal firearms licensees, to meet. If ATF continues to enforce the law in the current manner, few licensees will remain in business. Congress should make clear that licensees should only face serious penalties for serious, material violations that could result in sales to prohibited persons or that could impede legitimate investigations.

Apparently it’s a pretty tough standard for the ATF to meet too.

More Bad Laws

HB 1966, introduced a few weeks ago in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, would impose a 1% tax on firearms which will be used for a “Violence Reduction Fund”. The sponsors of the bill are the usual suspects. This one goes through the finance committee, and I’m not aware of the composition of that as far as the gun issue goes. It’s nothing to start worrying seriously about yet, but it does illustrate the mentally of the Philadelphia Politicians. Who is responsible for gun violence in Philadelphia? Certainly not the cretins who roam the streets committing crimes. Nope. It’s you and me, and we should have to pay the piper for purchasing evil guns.

Gun Control Internationally

Ahab talks about Canada’s attempt to get rid of their registry.Â I’m less optimistic than he is about Canada.Â Gun control is popular in Ontario and Quebec, which can outvote the western provinces.Â I think the passion about gun control laws in Canada stems from a desire to be seen as different from the United States.Â That’ll be a tough egg to crack for shooters in Canada.

Ace talks about Japan, which is tightening it’s laws.Â I’m not sure how much tighter you can get than pretty much illegal already.

Apparently Australia’s new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is a shooter.

“Likewise, the federal Labor Party under the leadership of Kevin Rudd has signalled a closer, more understanding relationship with shooters.

“Mr Rudd is no stranger to the shooting range and has not shied away from the media about his support for the shooting sport.”

Kevin a gun lover, maybe even a gun toter?

The Howard years were not good for Aussie shooters.Â Hopefully Rudd will be better to them.Â Kind of strange that in Australia it could end up being Labor that’s friendly toward gun owners.

Do You Yahoo?

Jewell Williams tried to apologize for his “the yahoos win again” comment, but I have to agree with this guy that the real yahoos are in Philadelphia.

Win Some, Lose Some

Or in Bryan Miller’s case, lose big, but say you won. He’s spinning the tabling of HB 29, the lost and stolen gun bill, as an example of progress for his agenda. It’s true that the bill was tabled, but not for the reason Bryan thinks. It was tabled to save the Governor embarrassment, and it was the anti-gun forces that were mostly in favor of tabling it. It was tabled to avoid having it defeated outright, along with the other two bills. Let’s take a look at the votes, shall we? These were the representatives who were willing to go on record with a vote on this bill:

Representative Deberah Kula, D-52
Representative Joseph A. Petrarca, D-55
Representative Ronald S. Marisco, R-105
Representative Thomas C. Creighton, R-37
Representative Craig A. Dally, R-138
Representative John R. Evans, R-5
Representative Glen R. Grell, R-87
Representative Beverly Mackereth, R-196
Representative Carl W. Mantz, R-187
Representative Tina Pickett, R-110
Representative Todd Rock, R-90
Representative Katie True, R-41

Gee, those are all pro-gun Republicans, save two Democrats from districts that don’t look too kindly upon the Governor, or gun control. The Democrats who voted to table this bill, but voted against one gun a month were Pallone, Ramaley, and Walko. Gabig is the only Republican not voting for the other bills who switched sides and voted to table HB 29. I don’t think, given the pro-gun forces wanted this bill voted on, it’s reasonable to conclude this is a sign of progress for Bryan Miller’s legislative agenda for Pennsylvania.

One has to wonder if Mr. Miller were a boxer, he’d declare victory because the other guy only managed to crack a few rips, break a wrist, but failed to break his nose.

UPDATE: Rustmeister has more

Wedge Issue

Jeff doesn’t think that Republicans will have anything useful to differentiate themselves from the Democrats on the gun issue if they nominate Rudy or Mitt. I agree. With the Supreme Court taking the Heller case, there’s no way gun control isn’t an issue in this campaign, and the issues involving Heller will play much more strongly for the Republicans than the Democrats. What Democratic candidate will want to go on record as favoring a ban on all functional firearms in the home?

Whether it’s Hillary or Obama, they will be forced to take a position on that. If they run on a platform of supporting the DC gun ban, they put themselves outside the majority opinion. It could be a great issue for the Republican candidate, but not if it’s Mitt or Rudy.

UPDATE: Armed and Safe has more.

Maybe She Needs To Talk to Hil Again

I have to wonder if Elanor Roosevelt, in her speaking to Hillary Clinton, ever mentioned this whole thing. Of course, I’m not sure I’d say the Roosevelts were champions of gun rights. After all, it was FDR who put his signature on the National Firearms Act.

Frank Honesty from Frankel

One of our state reps seems to understand why Gun Control has a hard time going anywhere these days:

State Rep. Dan Frankel took note of the e-mails he received last week concerning a package of gun control bills emotionally endorsed by Gov. Ed Rendell.

Unofficially, the count was about 1,000 to 10, with the gun-rights lobby winning that grassroots campaign just as it succeeded in rebuffing Mr. Rendell’s efforts to sway the House Judiciary Committee.

Did I ever mention I love Pennsylvania gun owners? We beat them 100 to friggin one! That’s how to get things done. Frankel goes on to say:

“There’s no political penalty for those that don’t support [gun control] measures, but there is a political penalty if they do,” Mr. Frankel said of the impressive political activism that continues on behalf of sportsmen and other gun owners in Pennsylvania.

That’s exactly what Ed Rendell fails to understand. Polls don’t matter. What matters is we’ll turn out to vote for the other guy if you vote to screw us. The people that you polled barely understood the issue, and won’t be pulling a lever based on it anyway.

“We know based on independent polling that most Pennsylvanians support stronger gun control laws,” he said. “The question is where on those persons’ priority list of issues does gun safety rank, as opposed to where on the list of the gun advocates. … The other side are single-issue voters and that carries a lot of weight.”

Yes, it does. I have said before I’m not always a single issue voter, but gun rights ranks very high on my political calculus, because it tells me an awful lot about how a certain politician views his relationship with those that he governs, and his respect for limits being placed on governmental power. The gun issue is a great litmus test for how much a political candidate cares about liberty.

“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” Mr. Rendell said. “We are not going to go away.”

Yes, it is, and we have a lot more endurance than your folks do, Governor. Do you really want to start this political fight? Because I promise you, we’re very interested in finishing it, and not on terms you are going to like.

In addition to the vigilant NRA, which on its national Web site immediately posted information about the House Judiciary Committee’s votes and each committee member’s position on them, a newer coalition of smaller gun-rights organizations adds to the effectiveness of the gun-rights lobby. They banded together two years ago to win legislative compromise on how gun owners would be affected by a new law concerning protection-from-abuse orders, and were also active on last week’s votes.

“We are more organized now than we’ve ever been in Pennsylvania,” said Kim Stolfer, legislative committee chairman of the Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League, which is part of the coalition.

I doubt this was the effect the Governor was predicting he would have.