Snowflakes in Hell

The word dregs is actually a bit of brewing terminology.  The dictionary defines it thusly:

The remnants of a liquid left in a container, together with any sediment or grounds.

After the yeast have completed primary fermentation, they settle down on the bottom, producing a thick mud.  The goal of racking to secondary or to the keg is to get your beer off this mud comprised of yeast cells, before it ruins the flavor.   The last bit of beer out of the fermenter presents a bit of a dilemma.  You can do one of two things with it:

1. Dump it, in which case you lose about a quart of beer.
2. Drink it, in which case you’ll find out the next day that yeast is a natural laxative.  Yeast are good for you otherwise, though, and have some helpful nutrients.

Tonight I’m opting to drink the dregs.  If you really wanted to be gross you could drink it after swishing up the sediment off the bottom, but I doubt most would have the stomach for that.  As it is, with a highly floctuating yeast, you can pour a fairly clear glass off of the sediment on the bottom.

I’m having to rack two ales into the kegs tonight.  The first is the Bitter Bitch American IPA that was made several weeks ago.  It’s ready to be put into the keg, carbonated, and served.  I’m also having to do Joy’s Birthday Stout, which is really just from an extract oatmeal stout kit.   I told her I’d make her a stout for her birthday, which is next weekend, but I didn’t have a whole day to make a beer from malted grain, so I had to cheat and use extract.  It’ll really need to condition for another two weeks in the secondary keg, so if she’s intent on drinking it next weekend, it’ll taste kind of rough.

After this, I think it’ll be time to try a lager.  I think I’m up for it.

Apparently Corzine is out of the hospital.  He had this to say:

“I set a very bad example,” said a contrite Mr. Corzine, who broke his left femur and 11 ribs in the accident, speaking from a wheelchair just outside Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J.

His voice breaking with emotion, he added: “I hope the state will forgive me. I will work very hard to set the right kind of example.”

Here at Snowflakes in Hell, we have a loathing distaste for the politics of Governor Corzine, but we’re glad he’s OK, nonetheless, and hope he makes a speedy recovery (no pun intended).  Oh, but wait:

No one in the motorcade used emergency lights, as his driver had been doing at the time of the accident. They kept to a pace of about 70 miles per hour, even though the posted limit is 55 on the stretch of Interstate 295 that leads to Drumthwacket, the governor’s official mansion in Princeton, where Mr. Corzine will spend the next stage of his recovery.

Doing 70 in a 55 eh?   Well, I guess by New Jersey standards that’s really sane driving.  Doing 55 anywhere in Jersey would generally make you a traffic hazard.

Pennsylvania Governor Rendell got into a bit of hot water for having his motorcade do 100MPH down the PA turnpike between Philadelphia and Harrisburg.  It gave new meaning to his nickname “Fast Eddie”.  No news since on whether the Governor has slowed it down.  I suspect after Corzine’s trouble, he has.

Reader Nathaniel points to conflicting reports from both CenterDaily and The Collegian, about a man arrested on campus for weapons possession. First CenterDaily:

A Penn State student remained in jail Sunday night after arriving at an on-campus concert with three weapons, including a gun, and fighting with police as they tried to investigate.

Just before midnight Saturday, university police said they were advised a man in the crowd at the Movin’ On concert on the HUB lawn was carrying a firearm.

As officers approached the man — later identified by police as Isaiah R. Houston, age unavailable, of 137 Creekside Drive, College Township — a struggle immediately ensued, said university police Lt. Bill Moerschbacher.

Houston, who police said was drunk at the time, was carrying an expandable baton and a knife, Moerschbacher said. But the weapons were brandished, he said.

“As it turns out, the firearm was lawfully owned,” he said. “He had a carry permit.”

The charge is carrying prohibited offensive weapons, not carrying of a concealed firearm. The relevant statute is here. Basically the list of prohibited weapons is as follows:

Any bomb, grenade, machine gun, sawed-off shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches, firearm specially made or specially adapted for concealment or silent discharge, any blackjack, sandbag, metal knuckles, dagger, knife, razor or cutting instrument, the blade of which is exposed in an automatic way by switch, push-button, spring mechanism, or otherwise, or other implement for the infliction of serious bodily injury which serves no common lawful purpose.

My guess is, depending on the knife, they are charging him with the expandable baton. It is an exception to this part of the statute that the actor was in compliance with the National Firearms Act, so your NFA stamp makes you legal for some of them. It’s important for Pennsylvanians to note that the LTC covers only firearms. It’s legal to carry certain types of knives, but others are illegal. Must bludgeons are also illegal.

From the collegian:

Moerschbacher said Houston did not take out the firearm before or during the struggle.

“He didn’t threaten anyone with the firearm or anything,” he said. “The struggle is really what precipitated that arrest and discovering the other items.”

Jameela Truman, director of Movin’ On, said she witnessed the arrest.

She said she felt threatened by the event, but the police “fully handled the situation.”

Possessing a firearm is illegal on campus, Moerschbacher said. However, he said if the handgun is legally registered, police will ask the owner to leave or surrender the gun to the police. If the handgun is illegal, police will arrest the possessor, he said.

Either the Penn State paper got it wrong, or Moerschbacher is misrepresenting the law here. It is not against the law to possess a firearm on the campus of a University if you’re in possession of a License to Carry Firearms. But they do state the charges here:

Isaiah R. Houston, 137 Creekside Drive, was charged with public drunkenness, resisting arrest and possessing prohibited offensive weapons.

They don’t mention here that he’s being charged with unlawfully carrying a concealed firearm, which tells me that he probably does indeed have an LTC, which he will now lose. His carrying the firearm on university property was not illegal. That said, Houston is clearly a bozo, and is someone who ought not have a license. He’ll lose his, and I’m not going to shed a tear for him, because:

1. He was carrying his firearm while he was intoxicated
2. He fought with police when they asked him to leave school property.
3. He was carrying other weapons which are not covered under the LTC, and were illegal.
4. He allowed someone to spot his weapon. In my five years of carrying a firearm, I’ve never had anyone notice I was carrying one.

It is for certain that the Penn State Campus Police can’t arrest someone from carrying a concealed firearm unlawfully if the carry on campus while in possession of a valid LTC. But Penn State Campus Police policy has always been to remove anyone from campus found in possession of a firearm. The state’s preemption statute prevents political subdivisions of the state from making rules more strict than the laws of the state, but I don’t know whether Penn State is allowed to exercise its powers as a property holder. I suspect this is a legal gray area.

Unless the legislature wants to clarify this, or the courts make a decision on it, if you’re carrying on campus at a university in Pennsylvania, it’s best to be discrete, and if the police ask you to leave campus, to do so.

UPDATE: Follow the links in the comments. It seems Houston claims he was not, in fact, drunk, and that the Penn State Police basically used physical force to detain him. He is indeed charged with carrying the baton. I don’t know case law to know whether or not this is against the law. The law names several bludgeons by name, but has the catch all at the end. It’s advisable that people be careful about carrying non-firearm weapons.  Yes, it’s ridiculous, but that’s because there’s a better gun lobby than a bludgeon lobby.

SAF is calling on ABC to bar Sam Donaldson from reporting on gun issues for ABC news.  Why?:

The Second Amendment Foundation today sent a letter to ABC News President David Westin, asking that reporter Sam Donaldson be barred from ever again reporting on gun rights issues, because he is serving as master of ceremonies at a fund-raiser for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.Donaldson is hosting the event May 15 in Washington, D.C. His appearance, said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, reinforces the opinion of this nation’s gun owners that ABC and its reporters for the most part share an anti-gun philosophy.

But apparently we’re all paranoid gun nuts when we say the media has it in for gun owners.  Nope, no bias here!

Jeff Soyer, who it looks like is a Pennsylvania gun blogger for today, also points out this Penn State Collegian article, by someone who I’m guessing is from my area:

Police rely heavily on databases when looking into gun ownership. Under the new bill, police would be forced to directly contact gun manufacturers in order to obtain gun ownership information. Time is a critical component when investigating crimes, especially those involving guns.

Registries are records of legal gun ownership. Are the gang members shooting it out on the streets of Philadelphia are registering their guns with police? I’m curious exactly how much the writer of this editorial knows about Pennsylvania law and the motivations for pushing this bill forward? It’s been in the making since the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the state law prohibiting registration of firearms within the Commonwealth didn’t actually mean what it said, and that the state police were fine with keeping a record of every gun sold within the commonwealth going back many years. There isn’t supposed to be a registry, yet the state has a record of every pistol I own, which can be obtained by punching my name into a database. Sound like a registry to you? Sounds like one to me.

According to philly.com, since the beginning of this year, Philadelphia has reported 136 homicides — more than New York City, a much larger metropolis. It’s more important than ever that police have an easily accessible record of gun owners.

Philadelphia has among the lowest rates of legal gun ownership in the Commonwealth, yet it has among the highest crime rate. Take Philadelphia out of the equation and Pennsylvania’s crime rates are roughly similar to Western Europe, yet the rest of the state is absolutely armed to the teeth, and issues more than 600,000 licenses to carry firearms. That’s 600,000 or more Pennsylvanians that have a license to carry a loaded handgun on their person in public, and all but 32,000 of them are outside of Philadelphia. It would seem to be that Philadelphia has a criminal problem, because if it was the guns, the rest of the state would be swimming in rivers of blood.

The concept of domestic violence became all too apparent in Centre County on April 8 when Benjamin Barone, 35, of Williamsport, lured his estranged wife to a Sheetz near Mill Hall and shot her, then killed himself. Jodi Barone, 36, of State College, had come to meet her husband where she expected to exchange custody of their three-year-old daughter.

It is a tragedy that Jodi Barone’s life was cut short because of a poor decision by her husband.

However, more lenient gun laws would not have helped the situation and will not aid other cases of domestic dispute.

And more strict gun laws would not have helped either. The guy was willing to murder someone. Do you think he would care whether he had a license to carry his gun?

Responsible gun owners understand they have no reason to worry about the government knowning about their firearms.

Ask responsible gun owners in New York whether they had anything to worry about when the city went around using their registration database to confiscate legally held and licensed firearms when they decided to make them illegal. Ask folks in California who had the same thing happen to them. I can point to a case of someone I’m familiar with in Pennsylvania who was involved in a self-defense incident and had his firearms confiscated by the Philadelphia police, who, last I checked, had still not returned them as they were legally required to do after charges were dropped. How did they know he had more guns? The registry the state police have been illegally keeping.

Talk to gun owners in our state sometime, before jumping to conclusions about what we do and don’t need to worry about.

Bob Mitchell of Delaware Online, an NRA member, thinks private sales ought to be banned.   I presume he’s speaking of Delaware, because Pennsylvania already ban private sales of handguns.  Do you know what the criminals in Philadelphia seem to have no trouble getting?   If Delaware passes this, the impact on crime, I predict, to be absolutely zero.

Hat tip to Jeff Soyer

It’s tax freedom day for a lot of us today. Looks like Pennsylvania’s tax freedom day was last Friday. Bitter’s is today! Washington D.C. still has to work 13 more days to their tax freedom. New Jersey has 11. People in Tennessee were free 15 days ago. Most heavily taxed states?

1. Connecticut (May 20)
2. New York (May 16)
3. New Jersey (May 10)
4. Vermont (May 9)
5. Rhode Island (May 9)
6. Nevada (May 8 )
7. California (May 7)
8. Washington (May 6)
9. Massachusetts (May 6)
10. Minnesota (May 4)

Least heavily taxed states:

1. Oklahoma (April 12)
2. Alabama (April 12)
3. Mississippi (April 13)
4. Alaska (April 13)
5. Tennessee (April 15)
6. New Mexico (April 15)
7. Louisiana (April 16)
8. South Dakota (April 16)
9. Texas (April 19)
10. Idaho (April 19)

Pennsylvania appears to be slightly below the average rate of taxation. There’s a handy map, if you follow the link.

Hat tip to Instapundit

Clayton Cramer reminds us:

If You Have a Concealed Carry Permit For Your State

You should feel obligated to be carrying at all times right now. The media attention to the Virginia Tech massacre–and now this tragedy in Kansas City–is going to put ideas into people who may have been thinking homicidal/suicidal thoughts. Protect yourself, your loved ones, and the general public.

He’s right.

Apparently they are trying to ban leaf blowers in Lower Merion Township:

The source is a group whose name is a virtual declaration of war. The 30 members of the Lower Merion Citizens for Action Against Leaf Blowers are crusading for a township prohibition the likes of which the region - indeed, most of the country this side of California - has never seen.

They’re pressing the Lower Merion commissioners for an ordinance setting a maximum level of 65 decibels for leaf blowers used commercially in the township. (The average is about 75 decibels, which is actually 10 times louder.)

And - the doozy of the demands - they want to restrict contractors’ use of even the muzzled models to 21/2 months a year, from Oct. 1 to Dec. 15.

The rest of the time, yard cleanup “should be performed silently, with a rake,” said Bradford Whitman of Wynnewood, a 62-year-old environmental lawyer and the group’s founder.

Just so you know, this is part of Philadelphia’s main line, where not many people do their own landscaping. I can sympathize with the annoyance of getting woken up by a leaf blower; it’s happened to me many times. But you know, you live with it. It’s part of having neighbors. If I lived next to this douche, I would make sure to be out every morning with the loudest leaf blower I could get my hands on, just to piss this guy off.

I’m hoping Lower Marion Township will have more sense than to listen to this guy. I’d bet money that Braford Whitman is just a deranged green who wants to see less carbon consuming leaf blowers in use, and more carbon consuming landscapers with rakes. What does it matter anyway? It’s not like the residents will be out there with the rakes. Nope. Plenty of illegal immigrants to do that dirty work!

UPDATE: Susan, who I’m guessing is from the township in question, has a great comment below.

The ATF recently reclassified the CZ-82 as C&R, so I decided to place an order for one.

I already keep 9×18 Makarov in stock, so this pistol doesn’t require me to keep yet another caliber of pistol cartridge in stock.  I’ll get the Nagant revolver later I think.  It comes with a spare magazine.

I’m pretty sure this pistol is safe for concealed carry.  I’ll have to check it out thoroughly when it arrives.  I can get used to the idea of ordering new carry pistols off the internet.

This time in Kansas City, MO. Three reported dead so far. After a well publicized mass shooting, it seems there are always copycat incidents that follow in short order. I was hoping to escape that this time, but it appears that won’t be the case.

Fox is reporting that the shooter used an AK-47.

UPDATE: Information is still coming out about this.  Judging from what witnesses are saying, and from the type of wounding they are describing, I’m going to guess shotgun.  A witness said the guy had a sawed off shotgun.   You have reports of an officer taking a hit, and then returning fire.  Another of a victim holding his eye, having been hit.   Those types of wounds are more consistent with a shotgun hit at a distance, rather than a rifle hit.  Especially if it was a short barreled shotgun, and the shooter was using bird shot.

In California, it seems that fire has melted steel:

It’s quite possible though that fire has not melted steel here, and that moments before the tanker truck “caught fire”, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were slinking around setting detonation charges to bring the bridge down.   If I were Oakland, I’d start to worry.   Clearly they are using this as a pretext for invasion, so they can get the war they always wanted against Jerry Brown.

At least that’s how I’m expecting the 9/11 truthers to spin this, since fire apparently can’t melt steel.

Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat writing in the Toledo Blade, writes:

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Dan, buddy. If it ever comes to that I’m turning in my ammunition first. I suspect many of my fellow countryman would too. We have a term for the society you envision. It’s called a police state.

There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems a lesser sort of issue.

Yeah, because the people murdering each other in America are hunters. Not drug dealing gang members. Seriously Dan, how do you call yourself a proud American? Perhaps you’d find Russia, China or some other police state more to your liking.

And how is it that the Toledo Blade thought this was a serious enough editorial as to publish it? Is the Toledo Blade advocating bringing a police state to America? Looks like it to me.

UPDATE: Looks like David found this turd’s article too.
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh too.

This is what happens when I post something before checking other blogs :)

The Senate’s token Dinosaur, Frank Lautenberg, who was well on his way toward fossilization when the NJ Democrats brought him back to life to run in place of Robert Torricelli, is pushing more gun control again. This time, adding the terrorist watch list to NICS:

The Justice Department proposed legislation on Thursday that would give the attorney general discretion to bar terrorism suspects from buying firearms, seeking to close a gap in federal gun laws.The measure, which was introduced by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would give the attorney general authority to deny a firearm purchase if the buyer was found “to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism.”

Suspects on federal watch lists can now legally buy firearms in the United States if background checks do not turn up any standard prohibitions for gun buyers, which include felony convictions, illegal immigration status or involuntary commitments for mental illness.

So Bush’s Justice Department is proposing this? More evidence that Bush is a turd when it comes to this issue. The problem with this legislation is that you’re depriving someone of their constitutional rights administratively, without any due process. Lautenberg isn’t treating gun ownership as a right here, he’s treating it as a privilege that’s granted or revoked at the whim of a federal bureaucrat.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the process took time because it involved delicate issues, including “the protection of sensitive information upon which terrorist watch listings are based, as well as due process safeguards that afford the affected individual an appropriate opportunity to challenge the denial after it is made.”

We call this “prior restraint” and it usually doesn’t fly when it comes to constitutional rights. It’s time to remind the Justice Department, and Frank Lautenberg of another part of the constitution they seem to have forgotten:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sorry, some government bureaucrat deciding you belong on a list does not qualify as due process in anyone’s dictionary. Frank Lautenberg should retire. Clearly he’s forgotten the oath he took to uphold the passage stated above.

Hat tip to The Ten Ring

Ahab reminds gun owners of something pretty important:

I carry a gun. I would guess that a pretty big chunk of my readers also have carry permits in the states of their residence. What I find extremely disturbing about the story itself is the media’s reaction. Despite the fact that the DA and the police have decided that the CCW holder was within his legal rights, there is all sorts of outcry from the dead criminal’s family. The news story linked tries to portray the dead criminal as some sort of choirboy, gunned down in the prime of life or some nonsense.

When did we start having sympathy for perpetrators of violent crime? Why is it okay to demonize someone who acted in defense of his own life in the face of violent aggression? To me, this story and the way it’s playing in the media serves as a warning to those that choose to go about armed: even if the law says that you did no wrong you can expect to be crucified in the press. Doubly so if your attacker was a youth, or if he’s a minority and you’re not, or if you shoot your attacker “several” times.

It is unfortunate to me that in this day and age, we would rather have sympathy for a young man that died reaping precisely what he had sown than express our concern for the man who has to bear that death on hisconscience for the rest of his life.

It bothers me too.  I saw this a few days ago on The Volokh Conspiracy.  There is a sentiment among some, perhaps many, in the population, that because robbers don’t usually kill their victims, that this man who was carrying a firearm to defend himself was not justified in using deadly force to stop his attacker.

I don’t subscribe to this warped sense of morality, needless to say.  When someone comes up to me and points a gun at me, what he’s telling me is:

“I value that money or object I want from you more than I value your life; your life is worth no more than whatever you might have in your wallet.”

When someone crosses the line into lowering the value of another human life to that degree, I see no reason why other people should feel any particular reason to value that person’s life at any higher level.   Whether the robber intends to shoot his victim or not, pointing a loaded deadly weapon at another human being in an inherently dangerous act.  When you decide to engage in that kind of behavior, you devalue your own life by devaluing the lives of others.  It matters little to me that this youth was fifteen.  He was old enough to pick up a gun and go try to rob people.  If he’s old enough to make that choice, he’s old enough to pay the price with his life for having made it.

I would not feel very good if I were in a position where I had to shoot a teenager in self-defense.  I suspect that Mr. Wells will also have a tough time dealing with it.  Most decent people can’t kill another human being without suffering significant psychological consequences.   I feel bad for the family of the robber, but their child suffered the consequences of his choices in life.  It’s not fair or proper to put the blame on Mr. Wells, who was merely defending himself.

Bitter beat me to the story about State Representative Jewell Williams recieving a death threat from someone near Allentown. I sincerely hope that they find the guy and get him off the streets. This is not someone we need on our side. Here’s the story:

For protection, State Rep. Jewell Williams packs a .38-caliber revolver in his North Philadelphia district and while traveling to Harrisburg.But a threatening e-mail he received yesterday has him considering a further precaution: dusting off an old bulletproof vest stored for the last seven years in his closet.

The e-mail, sent by a man Williams identified as a resident of Allentown, said Williams should be shot while in the Capitol. …

“Now that I hear this attitude of people recommending lynching, I’ll probably be wearing my gun more and possibly wearing my bulletproof vest, because we now think we’re being threatened,” Williams, a former police officer, said yesterday at a news conference calling for tighter gun laws.

Jewell Williams is a grade A bozo, and hypocrite for calling for tougher gun laws that would disarm you and me while he himself is carrying a firearm for self-protection. Who elects people who think like this?

But threatening Williams is reprehensible. I support William’s right to carry a firearm to defend himself. I really do wish he’d support mine. One bit of advise for Representative Williams, though. Body armor has a limited shelf life, I think along the lines of five years. If that vest has been sitting in the closet for a while, it’s probably better to buy some new gear. The old stuff will probably still stop a bullet, according to its rating, but it’s not a good idea to take chances if the vest is beyond the manufacturers expiration date. Get a new one!

I’m trying to join a private shooting club.  The Pennsylvania Game Commission has closed the public outdoor range in my county, and although I maintain a membership at at Classic Pistol, a local shooting range, it’s limited to indoors, 25 yards.  The cool thing about it, though, is you can shoot full auto, rifle, pistol; pretty much whatever you want, except for black powder and API rounds.  Their facilities, for an indoor range, are second to none in the area.

But this place I want to join is very local, and the facilities are nice.  They have a top notch trap and skeet setup, an indoor pistol range, a plinking range, and a 200 yard outdoor rifle range.  It’s available for shooting all hours.  There is a downside though.  They don’t allow magazines to be loaded with more than five rounds, even on the plinking range.

I got a letter today stating that I have to qualify, and be voted in.  Now, I totally understand qualification; they have an interest in making sure I am not a dummy, and can safely handle and shoot a firearm.   But what worries me is this part of the letter:

PLEASE NOTE. ALL GUNS MUST BE CASED WHEN ENTERING THE CLUB.  HOLSTERS ARE NOT A PROPER CARRYING CASE.

It’s a private club, and they can make their own rules.  But that significantly annoys me, enough to make me reconsider whether or not I want to join.  On the one hand, they have really nice facilities, and it’s close to where I live.  On the other hand, it’s shooting club, an NRA affiliated shooting club, in a state where 6% of the population is licensed to carry a loaded concealed handgun, and these guys are uncomfortable with the idea of concealed carry?

I can walk into my other indoor shooting range carrying a concealed weapon with no problem.  Their only rule is that, in the showroom, the firearm must either be cased or in a holster.  That’s reasonable.  Being a gun club, and not being comfortable with carry is kind of stupid.

I’ve been told they’ve had problems with bozos at the clubs doing things that are unsafe.  I am sympathetic to this, and understand making new potential members jump through some hoops, by requiring sponsorship from current members, having to pass a safe shooting test, getting voted in at a meeting, etc.  I think these are all reasonable things for a private club.  But I have no desire to join a club that treats its members as potential bozos, or accidents waiting to happen, and institutes rules that treat them as such.  That’s what anti-gunners do, and I have little tolerance for it.

So the question is, do I want to tolerate the rules, join, and work to try to change the club from within?  Or do I tell them to get lost, and  continue to drive an hour and a half to Lehigh County every time I want to do some clay or outdoor shooting?  I’m not sure.  I’m always a fan of trying to work within the system, but I don’t take kindly to being treated as anything other than an adult who knows how to competently handle, and yes, carry a firearm.

I’ve been trying today to get a new firewall set up and functioning properly at work.  It’s required some work at home to get remote access stuff working properly, so I haven’t had time to queue up posts or post when I get home too much.  Tomorrow I’ll be heading down to Northern Virginia to visit you know who.

I’m glad to see the NRA has finally started to talk to the public, and I like what they have to say. However, now that they are talking again, I really hope they start talking about one, very important thing: the fact that they are working with the Democrats on a bill to get more state records, including mental health records, into NICS.

Now, folks should understand that this doesn’t mean the NRA approached the Democrats and said “Hey, let’s work on a gun control bill together.” In all likelihood the Democrats started working on this, it looked like it had legs, and the NRA wanted to be part of the process. We want the NRA involved in that kind of situation. If they just stood outside of the process and said “We’re taking a hard line stance on this bill and opposing it.”, they are likely to alienate some of the marginal politicians in Congress and make it easier for the hostile politicians, who would love to attach their pet gun control issues to the bill, to influence them.

The NRA can not just come out in opposition to everything that comes down the pike. There are some battles we’re not on good political ground to fight right now, and a battle over NICS is one of those. Politics is an ugly process, and sometimes you’ll get bills like this, which suddenly get momentum because of a tragedy, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. The game, at that point, becomes making sure it does no further damage. Given the two clowns who are introducing the bill, it is absolutely vital to make sure that nothing else gets attached to it, unless it’s something to placate gun owners.

NICS is not going anywhere, because there’s substantial support for it. Even the NRA, who actively pushed instant background checks as an alternative a lengthy waiting period, is resigned to the fact that NICS exists and isn’t going away. So if the Democrats are intent on passing this bill, if you’re the NRA, you have several choices:

1. Oppose the bill, in which case you’re really fighting NICS, which you’ve supported in the past. This will alienate a lot of marginal gun-rights supporters. It will increase the liklihood that the bill might pass with amendments that have more onerous gun controls in it.
2. Not oppose the bill, on the condition that we get something in return. This might be possible, but it might not be. It depends on how much momentum the bill has. If the sponsors of the bill are struggling to find a majority, more people might be brougt on board by adding pro-gun amendments. My guess is for the NICS bill, we are not in a position to demand much, as they probably already have majority support.
3. Not oppose the bill on the condition that it contain only the NICS language and absolutely nothing else. This is probably what they are going to end up doing, because it’s about where the NRA can best use its political power in a situation like this.
4. Actively endorse the bill. I don’t think this is likely. It would piss off too many members, including me. There’s no reason to do this, and it would risk giving too much momentum to the gun control crowd.

Normally, the way you kill a bill that would have broad public support on the floor, is to get your committee members to kill it there, and get the leadership to prevent it from being brought to the floor in the first place. Now that the Democrats are in charge, we have hostile politicians in charge of many of the committees, and a hostile speaker, so what the NRA is probably seeing is that the bill is not killable in committee. If this bill passes, and we get nothing in return for it, don’t blame the NRA. Blame the Democrats. And remember that come election time in 2008.

I discovered Calico is still in business. They managed to survive the hi-cap magazine ban. So I gave them a call.

While they have never heard of the exact failure mode I had, they said that with the older bolt design (which my gun has), they have seen a few rare cases of the gun firing out of battery as the bolt is closing. As Armed Canadian pointed out the bolt was damaged when the shell ruptured. For around $100 they’ll repair the bolt and upgrade it to the current design. If I ship them the whole gun they’ll clear the barrel, inspect everything, and test fire it.

The people in charge of the gun club where the accident occurred are interested in what happened, so I’m going to do a little show and tell there (any maybe give them my eyeglass lens to stick up on the bulletin board), and then I’ll probably ship the gun off to Calico.

This article in the Rutgers Observer is worthy of some perusal.  They have a comment section, so feel free to (politely and respectfully) inform them of our viewpoint on the issue:

Five weeks ago, Cho Seung-Hui used a credit card to purchase a Glock 19 handgun and a box of ammunition. He paid $571.

In the mid-90’s Bubba Clinton signed a ban on assault rifles with no conceivable civilian use during a period when Democrats across the country were trying to impose modest gun controls. However, pandering to the NRA, Republicans have done their best to ward off even the slightest gun controls, exemplified in President Bush allowing the aforesaid ban to lapse in 2004.

Yes, even though the killer didn’t use an “assault weapon”, we nontheless have to once again ban bayonet lugs and flash hiders.

Reader KathyH brought up something in the comments about single issue voting, which got me interested.   Just out of curiosity, how many of you folks are single issue voters?

I am not, generally, believe it or not.  I’ve never voted for someone outright hostile to gun-rights, but I have voted for politicians who were less than staunch allies because I agreed with them on other things.  Despite the fact that I think our senior senator, Arlen Specter, is batty and often annoying, I’ve consistently voted for him, because on a lot of other issues, I agree with him on.

I also voted against Rick Santorum, despite is strong support of gun rights, because while I’m willing to accept some token social conservatism, he took the issue to new and insane heights, and I thought he deserved to get kneecapped because of it.

My major issues tend to change from election cycle to election cycle, but 2008 presidential it’s shaping to be:

• Foreign Policy
• Supreme Court
• Smaller government
• Firearms Policy

I actually suspect 2008 won’t feature much gun control, so I think that issue could end up being off the table.  It will come down to the other three.  I can’t rank in any order, because it depends greatly on how much the candidate offends or supports each view.  My support for Richardson over other Democrats reflects my desire to see gun control completely off the agenda, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t vote for Guiliani over Richardson, if Richardson proposed something like, pulling our of Iraq and leaving the field to Iran and Al-Qaeda.

I’m also very concerned with seeing judges appointed to the Supreme Court who follow what the law says, rather than what they wish it to be.  I tend to agree more with Republicans on this issue than Democrats.  Though I support keeping abortion legal, I don’t favor how the Supreme Court chose to go about doing it.  So I don’t get quite that worked up as your averge Democrat when someone says they think Roe was wrongly decided.

Gun control ranks high in my political calculus, but it’s not overwhelmingly dominant.  This means I will probably never vote for a candidate who is explicitly running on a campaign of gun control, but other things can offend me as well.

While the Pennsylvania media is busy writing about how insane Pennsylvania gun owners are, I decided to look up the person who was apparently responsible for the banner which gave the people allied against us all the ammo they need:

Alan Kiser

Warning, the web page will annoy you with cheesy music. I happen to believe that people who assault my ears with cheesy music because I loaded their page should most definitely be hung from the tree of liberty. Leave it to a third party dude to bring the crazy to the party eh?

Constitution Party of Pennsylvania

Ahhh! More crappy music! I love the use of vibrato on some sections that just kind of bashes you over the head. I think it might have stolen my wallet too.

Now I’m not bashing third parties here folks. They serve a very valuable purpose in making the two main political parties, who are about as worthless as the dirt on the bottom of my shoe, seem sane and reasonable. The sad part is that I support a lot of constitutionalist views. I just can’t abide by the freaky religious stuff and rhetoric that underlies much of what the CP does.

This is one for the “How Not to Win Column”:

HARRISBURG — A sign waved at a gun supporters’ rally Tuesday outraged lawmakers who interpreted it as suggesting the lynching of a Philadelphia legislator and said they would report the incident to police as a death threat.

Two men stunned onlookers by raising the banner criticizing Democratic Rep. Angel Cruz, sponsor of a bill that would create a registry of gun owners and require people to pay a yearly $10 fee for each gun or face state police confiscation of their weapons. Cruz should be “hung from the tree of liberty for treasonous acts against the Constitution,” the sign read.

Are you friggin kidding me?  Look, I’m against the gun registration as much as anyone, and I’d like nothing more than to see Cruz pay a political price for it.  But let’s get real here.  The proper remedy for a politician going against their political oath is to throw them out of office, not to suggest they ought to be hanged.  This just makes us look insane.

The sign was “over the top,” Cruz said, but he said attendees had a right to express their opinions. He said people outside of Philadelphia don’t understand what it’s like in a city where “five or six killings” happen a day.

In the rest of Pennsylvania, “they don’t hunt human beings like they do in Philadelphia,” said Cruz, whose bill is before the House Judiciary Committee.

Imagine that.  Lots of guns, and we don’t kill each other.   Maybe Philadelphia has a criminal problem rather than a gun problem?

Republican Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, of Cranberry, a strong supporter of gun owners’ rights who helped organize the rally, said the sign contained “horrible statements” that had no place in a conversation about politics and policy. The people involved did not represent the event organizers, he said.

Geez guys, you even pissed off Daryl Metcalfe!   He’s one of the staunchest supporters of gun rights in the legislature.

“The overwhelming majority of gun owners are not criminals. …They are not madmen, and they shouldn’t be treated as such. They’re hunters and sportsmen,” said Rep. Jesse White, a Democrat who represents portions of Washington, Beaver and Allegheny counties.

He’s right.  It’s a pity a few bozos had to suggest otherwise.