Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 1661 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Intro from Ahab

Hmm…it seems that I have been beaten to the punch by Christina; but for what it’s worth here’s my introduction. I’m Ahab, the author of What Would John Wayne Do, but most of you know that because I don’t think I have any readers that don’t read over here.

I occasionally update my blogs on weekends, but since Sebastian is out of town, I was going to post tomorrow. Tomorrow is a Shooting Saturday, and I’m going to be trying out my new (to me, anyway) 1935 Beretta. I’ll be ~~forcing you to read~~ sharing my results with you guys.

Intro

First off, I would like to say that if I had known my user name could have spaces I would have separated the words in my name. I assumed I couldn’t have spaces, and now I feel silly. Oh well!

This is just a short intro post, and then I probably won’t post again until Sunday since I’ll be working all weekend. I understand that in the blogging culture this isn’t a big deal since most people write/read blogs during the week anyway while at the office. I haven’t had an office job in almost five years, and unfortunately I have yet to find a strip club that is modern enough to offer wireless Internet access. Actually, that would be a really bad idea. Customers would bring in their laptops and look at porn online and all the dancers would get pissed. So never mind.

I have a rather distinctive look, and I do magazine modeling as well, so I’m going to be pretty vague about my identity and location. I understand that this is also perfectly acceptable in the blogging culture. I already feel like you guys are really quite an accepting bunch!

About me: Christina is not my real name, but it’s one of the names that I frequently give to customers who demand to know my real name. I’m in my early twenties, and I’ve been married three years. We’re childfree. Before I started stripping I was a personal trainer, and before that I was a philosophy student at a bottom first-tier private college. I started stripping about two years ago. Sebastian was actually one of the first people I told I was thinking about stripping. He was pretty appalled by the idea. Now I think he’s just amused.

Your Guest Bloggers

It’s just about time to start heading down to the Texas Fun Time Shootout with Bitter. Let me introduce you all to your guest bloggers, in the mean time. I’ve lined up a pretty diverse set of topics to blog about while gone:

Captain Ahab
Ahab runs the blog What Would John Wayne Do?, and will be filling in for me on the topic of guns, probably with a bit of The Duke mixed in.

ChristinaTheStripper
My friend Jym’s wife, who, yes, is a stripper by profession. She’ll be blogging on the topic of arming bouncers at adult entertainment establishments, and also, to my understanding, about some of the economic and social aspects of her line of work. I’ve read some of the stuff she’s put in her personal journal, and it tends to be pretty interesting.

Brad
Brad is a friend of mine from college. He’ll be taking over on the topic of Pennsylvania politics, and hopefully saying bad things about Ed Rendell and the politicians in Philadelphia. I haven’t been doing nearly enough of that lately.

Thanks so much to you guys for filling in for me while I’m busy destroying various things, including some old hard drives from work, with hot lead.Â Do notice theÂ Categories list beside where you post though, and try to select an appropriate one.Â I try to avoid having everything uncategorized.

So I’m off for the week folks. Â I will leave things to the guest bloggers. Â I may pop in from time to time and post something, but probably not.Â I’ll be pretty far out in the middle of nowhere, but we’ll see. Â I officially return Monday the 19th.

It’s a Sad Statement

It’s kind of sad to me that we’re all rather dumbstruck that a federal circuit court actually ruled that the constitution means what it plainly says to anyone with a basic grasp of the language.Â It would be nice if this wasn’t such, I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise and a shock, it should be expected.

But in a world where judges view that they should increasingly defer to the legislative bodies, and where conservatives rally against “judicial activism” (at least the activism they don’t like), and liberals think that the commerce clause should mean Congress has the power to legislate against assault, I guess we have to take the occasional acts of sanity from the federal courts with the celebratory tone that such rare and welcome acts justly warrant.

A Little Poke at the Antis

You’ll forgive me for a brief lapse in maturity here.Â From the DC court opinion:

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

So, to the Brady folks, Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center, Bryan Miller of New Jersey Ceasefire, The Gun Guys, Joyce Foundation, and all our other fun furry friends in the anti-gun movement who love telling us how the second amendment doesn’t protect an individual right:

TTTTTTBBBBBBBBTTTTTTTT :P

Parker vs. DC

Crap, why does something this big have to happen as I’m about to go on vacation?

SayUncle has all the great details.Â This is fantastic news, really fantastic news. Â But it could have implications. Â Our court strategy has to be very carefully undertaken. Â My worry with the Supreme Court ruling that it’s an individual right is that the courts will be flooded with new second amendment cases, and the circuit courts, as they’ve done with other Court rulings they don’t appreciate, will essentially build lower court precedent to render the second amendment effectively meaningless.

Sure, the government might not be able to outright prohibit firearms, but anything up to that might be just fine by the circuit courts.

Technical Difficulties

For some reason a post meant to go up tomorrow went up today, even though it appeared to be appropriately post dated. Not sure what happened, but sorry for those of you sucking the RSS feed.

Question For Philadelphia Mayoral Candidates

Why do you think disarming this man would help Philadelphia’s crime problem?

The owner of a West Oak Lane luncheonette pulled his licensed revolver and fired on a pair of armed robbers yesterday, killing one and wounding the other.

The owner was identified as Jason Lee, whose Sunrise Breakfast on the 1900 block of East Washington Lane had been the target of at least one stickup before.

“He was defending his family as far as I’m concerned,” Chief Inspector Joseph Fox, chief of detectives, said earlier in the day. “He did what he had to do.”

Lee told 6ABC last night that he was “sorry” for what happened. “I did not have a choice,” he said, adding he feared for his life and that of his wife.

That’s one, possibly two more people who won’t be menacing the streets of Philadelphia anymore.Â It’s not a bad thing when good people are able to fight back.Â I wish more Philadelphia politicians agreed with that.

Some Irony

I seem to have lost my GPS receiver. The irony of losing a device that’s mean to ensure that I’m never lost is not completely lost on me. I need one to know when I place targets, how far out I’m shooting. We also plan to do a little geocaching too.

If it doesn’t turn up by tomorrow, I guess I’ll have to go out and get a new one. That sucks, but I think I might have really lost it. It’s not anywhere I would have reasonably stashed it. Crap!

The Haul

I’m finally all packed and ready for the trip. It’s a lot of stuff. First the firearms:
Don’t make fun of the pink carpet. It’s not my fault. The previous owner was deranged, I swear. I ran out of packing tape, so I had some of Bruce’s “Give Peace a Chance – Kill Terrorists” bumper stickers laying around, so I used that to seal the boxes. I thought it was a nice touch.
That’s all of it. Clothes, camping gear, backpack, tent, cooler, and laptop computer, and various other electronic gadgetry. That’s going to be added to Bitter’s stuff. I hope there’s room. Good thing we rented an SUV for the trip.