Snowflakes in Hell

After the debacle involving the Roanoke Times, I’ve decided to contact some of the local county sheriffs to see whether they would release LTC holder info to reporters. I’ll be relaying what they say as I get a hold of them.

One stunning thing is that most of the Sheriffs in Pennsylvania don’t seem to have e-mail contact info. This is the 21st century people. Time to get with the times!

Jim Gerlach (R-PA) is the representative for Pennsylvania’s 6th district. He came to speak at my place of employment today, addressing his adventures in the 100th Congress and how things are going to get nasty when the budget appropriations starts under the new Democratic majority. He spoke at length about his duties on the transportation subcommittee and some of Pennsylvania’s transportation woes.

A quick aside: He was a co-sponsor of a proposed 2005 bill to force social security taxes to be used for the sole purpose of social security. When someone asked about that bill and how it was forced to the side, Gerlach interjected, saying “You can call it dead.” So much for social security reform.

Now, on to transportation. Pennsylvania’s roads and highways are notoriously bad, and with the population drain from Philadelphia to the suburbs and beyond, the roads can get jammed at the first sign of trouble. Our mass transit system, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority continuously claims it is underfunded and threatens to scale back service and raise rates - it’s already the most expensive subway system in the US - every year.

When asked about some of the state’s transportation woes, he explained that unlike other states which require that infrastructure such as utilities and roads grow with population, Pennsylvania has no such doctrine. He added that there were some programs he was trying to get off the ground, such as the Schuylkill Valley Metro, which would run trains from Reading to Philadelphia, as well as his desire to secure more funds for major area roadways, such as US-30 and US-202. However, he did mention that one thing he was against was raising the federal gas tax. He said that, while it may be tempting to raise the gas tax to get more money for transportation projects, there is a large risk that Pennsylvania wouldn’t see any of the extra money.

Unfortunately, the lack of transportation funds from the feds will result in Ed Rendell’s state-based solutions. This will more likely result in a tax on oil companies’ profits, aka a gas tax. Another solution that has been floated before Rendell is the privatization of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. While I’m generally in favor of private toll roads, I hope that the revenue from that is earmarked solely for transportation rather than expenditures like his cockamamie socialized health care scheme and the next time a sports team threatens to leave.

On a personal note, I want to thank Sebastian for giving me the opportunity to guest blog for him while he was away. I hope that you at least found my viewpoints interesting, even if you didn’t agree with me.

From Leaning Towards the Dark Side, we learn that the last World War I combat veteran died on February 22nd, 2007.

The last American combat veteran of World War I recently passed away, on February 22nd. Howard V. Ramsey was 109 years old and lived in Oregon. He was corporal, and arrived in France two months before the war ended in 1918. Ramsey drove trucks and cars, which brought him under enemy artillery fire as he delivered supplies to the front lines, or drove an ambulance up to retrieve wounded troops. After the war ended on November 11, 1918, Ramsey spent seven months recovering the bodies of dead American soldiers. Ramsey was born in Colorado, and volunteered for service, as he was too young for the draft. There are still seven American World War I veterans, but none of them went overseas.

A sad milestone, for sure. But there are currently hundreds of thousands of folks out there following in Mr. Ramsey’s footsteps, of whom we should be justly proud.

Ben Wittes of TNR Online is calling for the repeal of the second amendment (sorry about the registration wall).

It’s time for gun-control supporters to come to grips with the fact that the amendment actually means something in contemporary society. For which reason, I hereby advance a modest proposal: Let’s repeal the damned thing.

At least this approach is an honest attempt to work within the bounds of the constitution, rather than just try to pretend certain parts of it that are disfavored aren’t there, but you can’t really repeal a right.  The constitution does not explicitly grant rights, it recognizes them by forbidding the state from interfering with them.  Repealing the second amendment would not end my right to self-defense, it would just eliminate the vehicle by which the constitution protects it; the right to bear arms.

But if the Parker decision is forcing advocate of gun control to take the position of “Let’s just repeal part of the Bill of Rights”, that’s a good thing for us, because that is a political non-starter with the public, and puts us on a much better footing than our opponents.   Amending the constitution requires overwhelming political agreement on an issue, and on this issue, we’re not anywhere near that.   The fact that this is part of the Bill of Rights, rather than something like the income tax, or prohibition, that was added later, will only add to the burden.

Don’t tell John Street or any of the other Philadelphia politicians, but one of the city’s landmarks, relatively unknown landmarks, is gun related.

The Sparks Shot Tower.
The first shot tower in the United States.
Circa 1808

Molten lead was poured from the top of the tower through grids or screens of different sizes. The drops that formed became perfectly round as they dropped. There was a vat of water at the bottom of the tower to catch the drops and cool them.

The lead shot was used for small arms, muskets, and shotguns.

I’ll have to pay this site a visit at some point.

Since Parker, I’ve heard an idea floating around, that I’ve heard before, but Parker is prompting me to blog about it: that the NRA doesn’t really want to see the Supreme Court rule that the Second Amendment is an individual right because it would dry up their funding source.  I don’t buy this line of thinking for a lot of reasons, and I think the NRA’s reluctance to use the courts can be alternately explained.

For one, the NRA’s political lobbying wing is a separately funded branch called ILA.   The NRA membership dues do not go toward political lobbying, they go toward traditional NRA functions which center around supporting the shooting community through education, competition, and publications.  If gun control were put to bed once and for all as a political issue, the NRA would continue to operate these functions, as it has for most of its history.  I would still continue to be a member, and I’m sure a lot of other folks would too.

Another reason I’m not buying it is because an individual rights ruling isn’t going to put the issue to bed by a long shot.  There will be many many fights ahead, because even with a strong, very broadly recognized right to keep and bear arms, there are still a lot of ways to complicate our lives that would probably pass constitutional muster.  How many people do you think, for instance, would continue to own guns if they were required to muster for two weeks in the summer time for militia duty?  I have my doubts that registration would be considered to be unconstitutional.   In fact, you could probably use a militia powers justification for it at the national level.

The reason the NRA is reluctant to engage the courts is because doing so carries a lot of risk.  While I like the Parker case a lot, and am optimistic we’re going to get a favorable ruling out of it, it’s still a huge gamble.  If we’re wrong, the second amendment is effectively read out of the constitution, and things could get very ugly for us after that.   I can’t honestly say I blame the NRA, especially given that they’ve been pretty successful at conventional political lobbying, for viewing the courts as the least predictable and most hazardous path of redress.  I’m not sure I really disagree with them.

The past month has brought the issue of hunting and gun rights to the forefront, but I saw some folks while traveling through Oklahoma that reminded me of another part of the shooting community that’s growing rapidly:

Sandy and James Duke of the Oklahoma Gunslingers. Just strangers passing on the highway, but given the number of NRA and other related stickers I ran across on the trip, there are quite a lot of shooters out there, at least traveling between Texas and Pennsylvania. So if Sandy and James Duke, or any of their fans manage to come across this… I’d like to say Howdy to the Cowboy Action Shooters from the Black Rifle Shooters.

Anyone have any idea whether the Cowboy Action Shooter community is involved with RKBA or not? I’d hate to think there’s a growing shooting community out there that we’re not reaching.