The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Joe Biden, who every time I hear speak makes me want to sharpen up a pencil and gouge out my own eardrums, apparently has some issues with gun owners.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3ghj5HSkI[/youtube]
Let me be the first to tell the Senator from the Delaware that he can go to hell.
(Thanks to my friend Jason for the QuickTime. I’ll have to buy him some 5.56×45 NATO as a thank you to him, and as a fuck you to Joe Biden)
I don’t own a dog, currently, but it strikes me that a lot of the same logic used for banning certain dog breeds is similar to that for certain controls on guns.
I don’t believe in the myth of the dangerous dog. Years ago it was the Doberman, now it’s the “Pit Bull”. I’m not in favor of regulating dog breeds. All dogs, properly trained and socialized, can be made to be non-dangerous around people. There are no dangerous dogs, only irresponsible owners, and I’m prejudiced against any laws that regulate possession of things, which can be used lawfully and responsible, because some people won’t. I don’t think, in a free society, that’s how things should operate. There should be a default assumption that people are responsible.
That some breeds look scarier and are more attractive to irresponsible owners is the exact same logic people have used to ban semi-automatic “assault weapons”.  The exact same arguments work against these laws as well: irresponsible owners are not likely to follow the regulations the government lays down, and only the responsible owners will be punished.
Bitter has never been to either Pat’s nor Geno’s to have a real South Philly cheesesteak. I haven’t been there for a while myself. I grew up in Ridley Park in Delaware County, about 5 miles south of Philadelphia, where the place you would get good steaks was Leo’s Steaks. Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough, but I can’t find any good places to get steaks in Bucks County. I’ve tried a few, and they are weak in comparison to what I know.
Of course, what sparked this is that Rightwingprof is in town. We’ll be meeting up with Wyatt Earp as well. We just had another murder in Philadelphia right in this area a few weeks ago, so I have to wonder if Rightwingprof really wants to meet us, or he really wanted to go to Geno’s, and figured having a Philly cop, and two strapped gun bloggers along would help even up the odds a bit ;) But seriously, we’re always happy to meet fellow bloggers. If you’re ever in the nation’s capital or Philly area, we’re up for getting together.
UPDATE: It was good to meet everyone. I didn’t realize that Bitter had never had a philly cheesesteak at all, so I will have to take her to Leo’s sometime to try the ones I grew up with. It’s been 10 years since I’d been the Geno’s or Pat’s, and was worried that maybe the neighborhood might have gone downhill since then, but it’s still a halfway decent area.
I agree with Clayton’s sentiment here about wolves. He quotes from a reader:
Currently Federal Rule 10-J allows commercially licensed OUTFITTERS only to shoot wolves that attacking their horses, we non-outfitter licensed horsemen must simply sit and watch the wolves eat our horses.
On Thursday, July 19th at 6pm at the Boise Center on the Grove the US Fish & Wildlife Service will hold an open house on a proposed rule change to allow us peasants to defend our horses if they are attacked. The open house will be 6pm to 7pm and a public hearing from 7pm to 9pm will follow.
Then states:
I am generally prepared to let wolves be wolves, but if the choice is shooting a wolf, or letting it destroy a domesticated animal in the presence of a human being–I’m hard pressed to see why the wolf should have a higher priority than a horse or a dog.
This seems sensible to me. Horses and other pets are like family members to those that own them. I can tell you that were I out in the wilderness, and a pack of wolves threatened my pet, the feds can shove rule 10-J where the sun don’t shine; we will be practicing the three S’s (normally Shoot, Shovel, and Shut-up, but in this case Shoot, Scoot, and Shut-up).
I’m generally in favor of the reintroduction of wolves into wilderness areas, but when they have encounters with people, the people ought to be allowed to win. There’s a difference between actively going out and hunting down wolves and killing them, and defending yourself, your family, property and livelihood.
My last “I’m not a gun owner… but” post got me thinking that it’s probably not astroturfing by anti-gun groups.  There are a lot of gun owners in this country, and most of them aren’t activists, nor are they informed.
Most people are rather selfishly unconcerned with other people’s liberty. If they were, you wouldn’t see the proliferation of smoking bans. People support smoking bans because they don’t like smoking, and don’t like the smell. So they want it banned. They don’t do it, don’t like it, so no one should do it.  Note you don’t see people pushing for farting bans in public, even though public farting is most decidedly unpleasant.  This is because everyone farts. People understand they could run a risk of getting fined for letting one loose in a public area, not realizing they were dropping a real stink bomb. People concern themselves with their own liberty, when it comes to the liberty of others, their own preferences will usually win out.
So you have someone with a Remington 700 up in his closet that he used to hunt deer years ago, doesn’t like these fancy, scary looking newfangled guns, that he is mistaken to think that only criminals, nut cases, and gang bangers have any use for, and is ignorant that his 700 is a military sniper rifle by another name. If he knew they’d be coming for that eventually, he might be more concerned, and more careful about what he says. But his ignorance and selfishness allow him to bitch about Glocks, and other scary looking guns he doesn’t approve of, because in his mind, it doesn’t affect his own liberty.
Liberty exists as a state where the rights of the individual are protected from transgressions by others, and by society collectively. It cannot be regarded selfishly. To be truly committed to liberty, one can’t merely support liberty for himself, without supporting it for others as well. This means a certain amount of tolerance behaviors and things that you find personally distasteful.
I don’t particularly like smoking myself, and I tend to think other drivers on the road are boneheads. There are people out there who can barely drive, let alone talk on a cell phone while doing it. But I reject smoking bans, because business owners should have to right to decide what is allowed on their own property (and don’t give me crap about second hand smoke. A night on the town exposed to second hand smoke isn’t going to hurt anyone at all, considering you’re probably drinking livery poison while you complain about other people’s unhealthy smoke). I oppose banning cell phones for drivers (as a primary offense, secondary offenses I have no problem with), because it makes no distinction between people making a quick call, or who know when to tell the other person to shut up and pay attention to the road, and folks gabbing on and on paying little attention. I don’t go for “punish everyone for the few” solutions to solving problems.
Liberty means having to accept some risk and tolerance of distasteful activities so we can all continue to live in a free society. The fact that most people don’t think that way should probably not be a surprise, but every time I read one of these “I’m not a gun owner… but” editorials, I find it hard to believe there are people out there that selfishly unconcerned with anyone other than their own freedoms.
Rendell is currently taking his budget signing on tour to several Pennsylvania towns, talking about great the extra transportation spending is, and how taxes didn’t have to be raised.
That is, unless you commute on the PA turnpike or I-80. I pay $600 a year to the PA turnpike commission. After this I’ll pay $750, and then 3% annually after that. If this was going to pay for repairs strictly on the turnpike, I might not complain so much, but it’s going to pay for roads that other people drive on, and for mass transit that other people use.
You can thank me, and every other turnpike commuter, for eating Rendell’s tax toll increase, so you don’t have to.  So let me run down the list of things Ed Rendell has done for me:
Today Ed Rendell is on a roll:
The bill – HB1590 – earmarks about $950 million annually for roads, bridges and mass transit. The money would come from sources that include boosting tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike by 25 percent in 2009 and increasing the toll rate by 3 percent each year thereafter. It also would allow I-80 to become a toll road.
Rendell said the plan represents “by far the most significant amount of money devoted to transportation needs in the history of the commonwealth†and should put roads and transit in good shape for the next 15 to 20 years.
Supporters say tolling along the 313-mile, east-west route would be set up to eliminate or minimize fees for local drivers by building collection sites at New Jersey and Ohio borders. However, the bill doesn’t specify how that would work.
When Ed Rendell was elected, he said:
We are the second oldest state in the Union because too many of our young people are leaving Pennsylvania. They are leaving Pennsylvania behind for opportunities elsewhere.
And he vowed to change that. Well, Ed, I’m a young person by most people’s definition, and I’m seriously considering leaving the Pennsylvania, where I have lived all my life, for a southern or southwestern state, because you can’t stop raising taxes and trying to take away my personal liberties.
No one will take you seriously as a blue state if you don’t enact a smoking ban.  Because we’re all about freedom and personal choice.  I miss good old fashioned liberalism, I have to say.
Gov. Ed Rendell has called for a ban on smoking in most public places as part of his broad “Prescription for Pennsylvania” agenda to lower the cost of health care, broaden its availability and improve its quality.
Ed Rendell can take his Prescription for Pennsylvania, and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Surrender personal freedom to keep health care costs down?  Oh yeah, that’s a road I want to go down.
Sometimes I swear we don’t have any politicians that have even the remotest concept of liberty. In this world, I am an extremist, and that’s sad, I think.
Because New Jersey’s gun control laws aren’t working, Bob Menendez and Frank Lautenberg are upset about Tiahrt:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNUFYl3VQr4[/youtube]
At least he’s honest and admits it’s for pushing for more gun control and for lawsuits, and doesn’t accuse Tiahrt of cutting off police access to the trace data.
Of course, he fails to mention that the Fraternal Order of Police and BATFE favor the Tiahrt amendment as well. Nor does he mention why they are opposed to it: because abuse of the trace data has interfered with legitimate law enforcement investigations.  Exactly the kind of abuse Menendez is supporting in this video.  Next time a politician tells you they support gun control as a crime control measure, don’t believe them.
HatTip to Blue Jersey
Menendez’s candor doesn’t surprise me. He’s from a state where you can say things like that, and it won’t hurt you.
I have an update to my post from yesterday. The Senate session information is up, and I have a link to the bill that passed.  The Senate bill (I was looking at house bills yesterday, wrong place to look):
It does update the definition of firearm for receiving stolen property and theft, as the house bill I posted yesterday did. I support this measure, since it extends penalties for stealing or receiving all firearms, not just handguns. This strikes me as sensible.
The bill also requires the police to trace guns recovered from juveniles and make a determination as to how the juvenile came into possession of it, even though the Brady Campaign and numerous other groups would like us to believe the Tiahrt amendment prevents law enforcement from doing things like this. Â Passing a handgun to a juvenile is a crime in Pennsylvania, except under limited circumstances (target shooting, hunting, etc), so the police can trace the gun.
Very important to note: The state police registry has been stripped out in this version! It did not make final passage. This removes my major objection to the bill.
I will have to agree with the NRA’s acquiescence to this bill. Pennsylvania isn’t passing gun control, no matter what the Inquirer and city politicians would like to dupe the citizens of Philadelphia into believing.