Nebraksa Expanding Gun Free Zones

From John Lott we learn that Nebraska is expanding its gun free zones to include college and universities, and hospitals.   I’m sure criminals and psychopaths hell bent on murder are quaking in their boots at the prospect of this new law, and will, of course, be sure to disarm themselves accordingly.

My attitude on gun free zones is quickly becoming the old mantra of “Better judged by 12 than carried by six.”  Clearly the politicians, at least in Nebraska, are delusional as far as the effectiveness of this crap.

Good To Know

K-Romulus tipped me off that possession of a standard capacity magazine was not a crime in Maryland. I just couldn’t buy or sell one there. I looked it up:

After June 1, 1994, It is unlawful to sell, offer to sell, transfer or receive any firearm magazine (except a tube magazine for a .22) that will hold more than 20 rounds. Possession is not prohibited.

I’ll be damned. That’s good to know! Fortunately, even in Pennsylvania, I tend to shoot the scoped AR with the smaller magazine, just because it helps it clear the bench when shooting off my sandbag. That basically means nothing I’m transporting through MD is illegal. Now if only I didn’t have to stop at the MD/DE border to put the Glock away.

Polyethelene Body Armor

Polyethelene is the same substance that milk and shampoo bottles are made out of.   But supposedly it’s better than Kevlar when made into fibers to be used in soft body armor. Looks like they aim for these to be a replacement for the Zylon vests which were recalled because they were shown to react with water and become weakened over short periods of time.

Good Second Amendment Paper

On a link from Instapundit yesterday, I read this latest paper on the second amendment. If you haven’t read it yet, I would very much recommend it. It gets into the history of gun regulations in colonial times, and is one of the first attempts I’ve seen to address some of the assertions made by the folks at the Joyce funded Second Amendment Research Center.

We’re Number 3. Where is Your State?

Rightwingprof provides this handy link. It ranks states according to percentage of population with carry licenses.  One surprise is how far down on the list Texas is.  You’d think they’d be higher, but they are beat by many other states.

I chalk it up to how restrictive their carry laws are, and the expense involved getting licensed.   I’d be willing to bet that many Texans carry illegally.

Well, We Knew This Would Happen

I’ve heard more than a few gun control proponents say privately that if people didn’t own guns, there wouldn’t be any way to steal them.  Publically, they won’t say this, because Handgun Control Inc. The Brady Campaign supposedly isn’t in favor of banning handguns any longer, at least publically.

One of these days I’m going to write a post on substitution.   There’s some interesting statics that I’ve run across that I want to share, which basically show that if you close down one means of criminal access to firearms, it boosts other means.  Create background checks at point-of-sale, you get a straw purchase problem.   Shut down straw purchases, you get a theft problem.   Shut down theft, you get more organized smuggling.  There will always be someone to fill the demand, which is obvious to us.   But the anti-gun folks are always going to push to close that one last “loophole” until we can’t own anything anymore.

Legislature Pushing Back

Dave Hardy has some links to the goings on in Pennsylvania right now.

I have written my state representative about the recent antics of the Governor. I think this is actually kind of foolish on Rendell’s part. This is is surprising to me, because I’ve always thought, despite my disagreements with the Governor, he was a rather shrewed politician with a good political sense.

Despite his lame duck status, he’s the primary mouthpiece for the Democratic Party in the state. He’s just been handed a stunning political defeat with voters overwhelmingly rejecting the Act 1 tax shift, and now, with the Democratic Party holding onto a single seat majority in the General Assembly, he’s pushing hard for gun control.

A lot of those new Democrats are from districts where the voters will eat them alive if they perceive them as pushing gun control. Even if the reps themselves are pro-gun, which is the case for many of them, they are still unknown quantities to voters, and Rendell’s rhetoric here isn’t going to do anything but hurt them.

Stockpiling Ammunition

Dave Hardy tell us that Virginia Governor Tom Kaine is troubled that anyone can just stockpile ammunition, because the Virginia Tech nut job had 377 rounds.   The last time I did an inventory, I had approximately 10,000 rounds of ammunition in my basement, in various calibers.  I’m pretty sure that many of you out there can beat this handily.   I think Tom Kaine, if this is really his sentiment, needs to get a clue.