Snowflakes in Hell

Jeff points out the story of how Sandra Froman became involved in the gun issue.  How did you become involved?   I’ll tell my story.  There are a few things that might be surprising, or maybe not:

1. I grew up in a household without guns.  My mother would not have allowed a gun in the house.
2. I did not own my own firearm until I was 25 years old.
3. My first firearm was an Romanian AK-47 variant.
4. I wasn’t all that into shooting when I bought the gun.  I bought it because politicians kept saying I shouldn’t have one.   Yeah, I’m like that.

I did have exposure to firearms growing up.   While my father and mother were not gun owners, nor were they reflexively anti-gun.  They did not indoctrinate me with anti-gun and anti-freedom values, and did make the mistake of letting me spend a lot of time around my uncle, who got into them when I was a teenager.  I can remember going to my first gun show before Papa Bush’s import ban went into effect, and seeing tables with Norincos on it.  I would have been around 14 or so at the time I suppose.  My uncle owned a few M1 Carbines, a pistol or two, and a few BB guns and air rifles, which we were allowed to shoot targets and run around the woods behind his house with unsupervised (the horror!).  I had a lot of fun shooting at targets, cans, various glassware and other such things.  It was a lot of fun!  At this point, I was only vaguely aware of gun control as an issue.  I knew some people wanted background checks.  This never really seemed to be unreasonable to me as a kid.  I was aware there were constitutional protections for firearms ownership, and never really considered that there might be people out there who disagreed with this in a serious way.

After I entered high school, and later college, I got away from shooting, and forgot about the fun I used to have.  Probably the first thing that made me stand up and pay attention to the issue was Papa Bush’s assault weapons ban, which he did using an executive order under his powers authorized by the Gun Control Act of 1968’s “sporting purposes” clause.  Now, at this point, I understood the differences between a machine gun, and a semi-automatic gun that looked like a machine gun, so I realized for the first time that people were willing to ban semi-automatic firearms based on looks.

The thing that really turned me into a serious opponent of the gun-ban lobby was when I was a sophomore in college and Clinton passed the 1994 Crime Bill which basically put a ban on an entire class of firearms.  At the time, I didn’t realize just how silly the drafting was, so I actually thought it more like California’s ban, rather than just a ban on bayonet lugs and flash hiders.  I still thought it was unconstitutional.  I never really thought much about the ban on actual machine guns.   That happened when I was a kid.   I knew you could get them, but that it was difficult.  I didn’t know, at the time, exactly how the law worked.

I stayed out of shooting until just before 2000, my friend Jason, who you all remember as the guy who had the Calico M950 blow up in his face (he finally had the fragments removed the other day, BTW), took me to shoot his Calico M100 and Beretta Tomcat .32 at the Bucks County PGC shooting range (now closed).  I remembered how much I used to like shooting when I was a kid; it had been the first time I shot a gun since I was a teenager.  A month or so later, Jason informed me that a gun shop in Feasterville was selling Romanian AK-47 variants for about 300 bucks.  I was shocked to find out they actually weren’t covered by the ban, and given the fact that I knew the current administration would disapprove, I jumped at the chance.   The first shot out of my SAR-1 was the first center fire rifle cartridge I had ever fired in my life.   It was downhill from there.

A few weeks after aquiring the AK-47, I decided to join the NRA.   Shortly after I also joined the SAF.   I got into reading blogs in 2002.  The first blog was Reason’s Hit & Run.   Early blogs after that were Volokh, Insty, Vodkapundit, Steven Den Beste, and The Belmont Club.   The first gun blog I became aware of was Kim’s Nation of Riflemen.  From there I became aware of SayUncle, Bitter, and Jeff Soyer.   The rest of them all came later.

Of course, I started my own blog to impress Bitter, and convince her to go on a date with me.   You can read about the rest on my about page.  So what’s your story?

It looks like one of the blogs I linked to earlier in the day has decided to engage me in some dialog:

So I was a little surprised to see that I was branded as an anti-gun misanthrope simply for posting about an article on Gun Guys; here’s my response

I didn’t say misanthrope. I did say anti-gun, which was a bit of an assumption on my part, I will admit. But is it accurate?:

First, you’re right; I do not like guns although I was raised even as a little girl to know how to handle them and to shoot. But not liking is rather different from “anti-gun”.

I respect anyone’s right to not like guns. I will fully admit they aren’t for everyone. I should probably clarify terms of art here. On our blogosphere community, “anti-gun” is synonymous with “pro-gun control”, and yeah, we tend to fairly broadly apply it.

Second, while I am strongly FOR gun education and safety, I do not campaign against guns or likewise. To some degree, adults should be able to choose their particular interests without having the feds in your face all the time.

Does this include my interest in shooting .50 BMG caliber rifles, AR-15 rifles and Glock pistol? I would hope someone who eschews the label “anti-gun” would agree that law abiding adults should be free to shoot the firearms they are most comfortable with, and enjoy shooting. If you support banning these, then you support taking away the guns I enjoy shooting, which, at least in my book, would qualify as “anti-gun”.

Third, as part of item two, I support intelligent gun laws that allow those who want to shoot as a passtime (or use for protection). I just happen to prefer not to use, see, or even have brought into my home or office a handgun or anything larger.

And I would agree that’s totally within your rights to not want a gun or to want one in your home. It’s “intelligent gun laws” that I expect would be the point of contention between us. What might be intelligent to you, probably isn’t to me. I’m not saying you’re unintelligent, just that the label is very subjective.

Fourth - and here’s probably the biggest gap between us - while some may call it issue advocacy at The Gun Guys, I find them a good place to start for information on an issue that I can then research through other means. After checking out several items, I find GunGuys generally less invested in spin than many of the sites that promote the “give every American a gun” ideals.

As someone who knows just about all the federal, and many state gun laws, and knows quite a bit about firearms mechanically, and the various shooting sports out there, I can tell you with some authority the Gun Guys are pretty much full of crap. You can choose not to believe that if you want, but it’s true. We tend to ignore them in the gun blogosphere, because they are generally so far off base as to not add much serious to the conversation. Even Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign, we dignify with more thoughtful responses.

Since this post mentions the need for education, I say hell yes! We can start with a better reading of the 2nd amendment as to what it DOES say, rather than what some wish to infer.

I know what it says, I’ve spent a fairly large amount of time researching what it means aside from the plain words. I’ve also researched a number of state constitutional provisions, many of which are much more clear about protecting an individual rights. Lately, even the liberal constitutional scholars like Larry Tribe and Stanford Levinson have embraced the view that it protects an individual right. The legal academy has generally come to accept the individual rights view.

Now how the scope of this right will be constructed, or should be constructed, by the courts is up for debate, but all we generally ask is that the right to keep and bear arms be held in the same regard as other constitutional rights.

Via Bruce, who links to this fine article:

When the state crosses that line and begins protecting adults from themselves, the people have lost their authority over the state. At once, there is no decision the state may not make regarding an individual’s personal behavior. The people have conceded that power, and it is no longer theirs.

Hopefully Governor Heineman can be convinced to veto the expansion of  “gun free” zones in Nebraska to include universities and hospitals.  Off limits places in Nebraska are already a mile long, and adding to them seems to be rather pointless.

“I’m not intending to anger the NRA,” the Wilber senator said, “but why on earth would you need a concealed weapon in a hospital?”

Is there a chance Grandma will pull her IV out and try to stab someone with it?

Might there be a doctor lurking about with a sharp scalpel?

Karpisek made his comments as senators voted to add hospitals and college campuses to the list of places at which concealed weapons are banned by law.

Because there’s absolutely no good reason to bar people from carrying in hospitals.  People have to get to and from hospitals too, and how many city hospitals are in atrocious neighborhoods?  Ever visited Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia?  Go visit, and tell me if you wouldn’t feel safer with a gun or an armed escort.  These arguments could be used for any number of places, and they are not serious arguments.  How well did Virginia Tech’s gun ban work for them?   These are feel good measures.  It’s not serious policy.

A little bit about the NRA’s role here.  The NRA has seemingly not produced any alert on the issue.  It looks to me like someone is dropping the ball here.   The NRA state affiliate in Nebraska doesn’t even seem to have a web site, so it’s possible Nebraska isn’t a strong state for them.  The state organizations are important, because the national NRA are often a lumbering bureaucracy, and are slower to act.

It looks like they tried to have the hospital language pulled from the bill, but it doesn’t look like they were successful.   If you read the final version of the bill, the language is still in there.  Some are condeming this deal attempt at selling out.   I certainly understand where this view comes from, because it sucks to lose ground.

Sometimes in the political process you’re just going to lose, and there’s not much you can do.  In that case you have a choice, you can either shout into the wind and have a really awful bill pass, or you can try to cut a deal and have a less awful bill pass.  Sometimes the choice isn’t between winning and losing, but between losing and losing badly.  This, pretty clearly, would be one of those cases.   The NRA tried to broker a deal to get the hospital language removed, and the legislature snubbed them and passed the bill as is.  Even with a deal attempt, we still lost badly.  Maybe it would be better not to do these kinds of things.  It would certainly feel better.   But I’m not sure, from a practical point of view, it makes sense to take two steps backwards when it could be reduced to only one.

I won’t excuse the NRA for failing to rally the grass roots in Nebraska, without so much as even an e-mail alert.  If the Governor does veto this measure, it will be because of the hard work of gun owners and bloggers in Nebraska and out who self-organized to apply pressure to Heineman’s office.  I certainly hope they are successful.

Via David Codrea

You know you’re in need of some educating on the gun issue when you’re using The Gun Guys as an authoritative source. Most of us have better things to do than comment on anti-gun blogs, but sometimes it’s good to talk to the other side. You’ll probably never change the blogger’s mind, but for the sake of people who might stumble across the post, it’s important to point out errors and ignorance. Most people say they support gun control because most people have no idea what the gun laws currently are, and don’t know anything about them mechanically, their use in sport, self-defense, or other places.

It’s important to educate. It’s really the best way to help the cause.

I like this post by David Weigel over at Reason that suggests Fred Thompson is to Republicans what Barack Obama is to Democrats.   I think that’s right.

If it wasn’t for the Philadelphia City Council, and the cities inept media culture that doesn’t do it’s research and ask the hard questions, I wouldn’t have nearly as much to write about. Today’s stupidity is centered around amalgam fillings:

The City Council committee okayed a bill requiring dentists to inform patients when fillings contain mercury, and to buy devices that dispose of mercury from recovered fillings. The measure goes to the full Council.

I’m glad they didn’t go as far as banning them, but I’m not in favor of forcing dentists to tell people the fillings contain mercury with the idea that amalgam fillings are not safe. This will likely scare people into unnecessarily getting the more expensive composite fillings, and many people who live in the city could use the savings.

Amalgam fillings have been in use for more than a century, and study after study have shown them to be safe. Here’s what the ADA has to say:

Dental amalgam is a stable alloy made by combining elemental mercury, silver, tin, copper and possibly other metallic elements. Although dental amalgam continues to be a safe, commonly used restorative material, some concern has been raised because of its mercury content. However, the mercury in amalgam combines with other metals to render it stable and safe for use in filling teeth.

While questions have arisen about the safety of dental amalgam relating to its mercury content, the major U.S. and international scientific and health bodies, including the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, among others have been satisfied that dental amalgam is a safe, reliable and effective restorative material.

That’s good enough for me. We have laws being passed by City Council based on junk science and anecdotal evidence. Maybe they should hire a few fortune tellers and astrologers to advise on further laws.

You know it’s a slow day when I’m linking to anti-gun blogs, which, I have to say, are few and far between, and as best I can tell, mostly unread.  Let’s start fisking:

The Virginia Tech shooting - 33 dead, 25 wounded - was another spark for the gun control debate in the United States. The National Rifle Association continues its campaign on the erroneous belief that the 2nd Amendment confers individual gun rights, and gun control advocates fight a rearguard action against some of the more heinous assault weapons (the linked gun can empty its 30-round magazine in 3 seconds).

Well, it does protect an individual right.  Even the liberal constitutional scholars think so.  The assault weapon you linked to has been illegal to import into the United States since 1968, as has any other foreign made rifle capable of fully automatic fire.  Domestically made full-autos have been illegal to manufacture for civilian use since 1986.  Possession of fully automatic firearms has been tightly regulated since 1934.  You really don’t have any idea what an “assault weapon” is do you?

1. If gun control doesn’t help reduce violence, then why was the Irish Republican Army asked to destroy its weapon caches as part of the peace process in Northern Ireland?
2. If gun control doesn’t help reduce violence, then why has the United States insisted that the Iraqi Prime Minister disarm the militias?

The IRA is a terrorist organization.   Terrorist organizations agreeing to lay down arms, we all agree, is a good thing.  But the IRA agreed to renounce violence and disarm itself.  If the IRA had wished to keep murdering people and being terrorists, can you explain how they would have been stopped?  The UK has had very strict gun control laws since the 1950s.  How did the IRA get their guns in the first place?

Second, in regards to Iraq, we allow families to keep fully automatic weapons in their homes for self-protection.   Yes, we’re trying to disband the militias who are fighting the elected government of Iraq, but gun control isn’t the primary method we’re using.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that guns are not a social good, lobbying groups like the NRA continue to advocate for “right to carry” or “concealed carry” legislation. While such legislation is unrelated to higher gun ownership rates, it also has no deterrent effect on crime.

What overwhelming evidence?  Studies show that guns are used in self-defense from anywhere from 800,000 to 2 million times a year?  And it’s also shown that concealed carry liberalizaion has had no effect in terms of increasing crime either.   So, living in a free society as we do, the burden is on you to show why the law restricting people’s right to defend themselves is necessary.

The facts show that gun ownership is correlated with gun crime, homicide, suicide, and violent deaths of children.

No, it doesn’t.  Stating it doesn’t make it so.

OK, so it’s a really slow day.  Hopefully I can find some better stuff to blog about.

If Professor Althouse can post beautiful pictures of flowers, then so can I:

Except Bitter’s camera doesn’t quite have the focus, and I don’t quite have the eye, that Ann Althouse has.

I thought the poppies turned out kind of nice though.  I’m assuming these are garden poppies, or something, and not the kind you grow to make heroin.

These were our pictures from our weekend at Montecello.  Jefferson was quoted as saying “to be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them ourselves”, which sounds like he had a bit of a survivalist streak in him.   I’m pretty sure this statement, combined with the fact that he was a strong believer in constitutional rights, and that his estate is growing poppies, would surely make him a terrorist in the eyes of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Every wonder how red dot sights work?  Mr. Completely has the scoop.

From Insty, Fred Thompson says he’ll run.

Politician-turned-actor Fred Thompson plans an unconventional campaign for president using blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties, he told USA Today.

Thompson, a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, has been coy about his intentions with audiences, but made clear in an interview that he plans to run.

It’s really good news for people who don’t like any of the other three clowns currently vying for the nomination. Thompson is a bit more socially conservative than I would like, but as Glenn points out, there’s a lot not to like about Giuliani. Mitt Romney is a political opportunist of the first order. The only other serious candidate, John McCain, doesn’t believe in free speech, and being in the Senate for too long has melted his brain.

So Fred might not be my ideal candidate, but I like his style, and he’s certainly better than the other three. Run him against Hillary, and it’s not even a question. Against Obama, even less of a question. I’ll take him over Richardson too. I like Richardson, but his foreign policy ideas don’t appeal to me.

So Fred it is!

Rightwingprof brought up the issue of urbanization and how it affects Pennsylvania in one of the comments. I thought I’d expand on the issue a bit in terms of how it relates to gun policy in the commonwealth.

According to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania:

• 2.8 million Pennsylvanians live in rural municipalities, or 24% of the population
• 64% of municipalities in Pennsylvania are rural.

No doubt that Pennsylvania is already heavy urbanized and suburbanized, but we’ve still maintained pro-gun policies. There is a reason for this.
The political center of gravity of the gun control movement in Pennsylvania is unquestionably Philadelphia. There might be some sympathies for it in some of the other cities, but in any movement you have to worry about it’s center of gravity. Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania’s other big city, and tends not to be as solidly anti-gun. The suburbs of Philadelphia have never been, and still aren’t solidly anti-gun. There are a lot of pro-gun legislators in the suburban districts, and even a few in Philadelphia.

The real danger is rooted in the suburbs going Democratic and becoming more solidly anti-gun, and following the lead of the city. My district recently switched from a pro-gun Republican to a pro-gun Democrat, so we’re safe in that vain, but I also live in the most pro-gun suburban county.

One of the things that really worries me is Delaware County, which is where I grew up. My state legislator there, Tom Gannon, was a long time NRA A rated politician. This past election year he was pushing an anti-gun bill. Granted it was less onerous than a lot of other measures pushed, but it still had the potential to penalize honest gun owners. He still lost his seat to an anti-gun Democrat. Delaware County is traditionally solidly Republican, but that’s changing, and it’s the fifth most populous county in the commonwealth. Reasonably pro-gun Curt Weldon, who represented most of Delaware County and some of Chester County, was also defeated by rabidly anti-gun Joe Sestak.

Is our state making the slow march toward being an anti-gun state? It all depends on whether the anti-gun movement’s center of gravity can grow to encompass the suburban counties. Pennsylvania has 12.3 million residents, and Philadelphia and the suburban counties contain 3.85 million of those, which would be a formidable force in state politics if they all voted in a single block.

Philadelphia has been losing population rather rapidly though, but they are moving to the suburbs, and continuing to vote like Philadelphians. For at least the next decade, our gun rights are safe. Beyond that, I wouldn’t want to place any bets.

I wish more psychologists were like Dr. Helen rather than this guy.

The Virginia Tech shooter used a Glock 19 semi-automatic weapon and a Walther. In less than 10 minutes he fired approximately 170 bullets. In the face of such firepower, do even the most ardent technophiles really believe that quicker communication systems could deliver people to safety?

Never claimed that, but I certainly do think someone capable of returning fire sure could have.

Our nation’s strategy for securing peace in other parts of the world includes ridding violent societies, such as Afghanistan or Iraq, of the widespread weapons that undermine their peace.

Actually, we’re taking weapons from belligerents.  Households are permitted to have a fully automatic AK-47 to defend themselves and their families.  Want to talk about bringing that kind of “gun control” to our shores?

You know it’s a slow news day in the gun blogosphere when I’m resorting to linking to college papers.  This one tells us that love can hurt:

For those who carry guns to protect your family I think you probably love your family so much it hurts… hurts them and all of us in society. Real love is based not on fear but on hope. My high school journalism teacher was shot by an elementary school student who had access to a gun. I grieve for both since they are both the victims of a lack of gun control.

I’m pretty sure they were victims of a deranged murderer.   And, you know, since people like that are out there, I’d really rather not depend on “hope” to protect me.  That’s how you end up at these people’s mercy, and that’s not for me.

Three of my cousins graduated from Virginia Tech recently and I am thankful that guns are not allowed on the VT campus. Allowing students to carry guns on VT campus would have not prevented the massacre, rather only made more people victims and more people shooters. Cho would have been more successful if he had an opponent.

Do these people even stop for a moment to seriously consider what they are saying here?  How stupid and incompetent do you have to think your fellow citizens are to even claim something this absurd?

I for one, am rather sick of the anti-gun people harping on Virginia Tech.  We’re really not going to see a sea change in gun laws over this.  That much is obvious now.   A few states, and maybe the feds, are going to move to tinker with mental health data and the background check system, but that’s as far as it’s going to go.   Get over it.  I’m tired of talking and reading about it.

It looks as if baseball bat control could be coming to the Keystone State.

Protecting kids from injury is the top priority, said Carroll, who represents Luzerne and Monroe counties and is an assistant coach on his son’s Little League team.

Of course, it’s for the Children.  I’m glad to see that all the other problems in our state have been dealt with, that our legislators can now feel free to turn their attention to the menace of aluminum baseball bats.  I played with aluminum bats when I was a kid.  I also didn’t always wear a helmet!  I got beamed with a ball once too.   Some would say this explains a lot.

The Representative who is sponsoring this legislation’s name is Mike Carroll, and he’s a freshman Democrat from the Wilkes-Barre area, out to show the world how much he cares, apparently.   He can be contacted here if you’d like to tell him what you think about this steaming piece of crap legislation.

Chris Byrne has a pretty good post up about self-loading mechanisms.

My shipment of venom and vitriol is late this week.

Eugene Volokh thinks that he probably was meaning to say run out of business.  I think it would have had to be a pretty poor choice of words in that instance.   I think it’s quite likely the Reverend didn’t intend people to literally go in and drag him out into the streets and kill him, and I think he’d probably have a pretty good defense against any charges.  But I do think he was alluding to violence in his speech.

This rhetoric is irresponsible, insulting and reprehensible for utterance by a public figure and supposed man of the cloth.  Sadly, we have people like this on our side too.

Looks like I scored 4 out of 5 in category and 7 out of 10 overall.  Considering how much time I spent at the range practicing to get my groups to be smaller, I’d like to say I’ll do better on the next match, but I don’t know if I have the time!  I have to say, we have some really good shooters out there.  That target was a bitch.  I can’t imagine being able to get some of those high scores.   I have a long way to go before I can pull something like that off.

Someone call the Brady Campaign.   Below is solid evidence that the 50 caliber can indeed bring down aircraft:

Apparently at least that’s what one Chicago area reverend thinks about gun shop owners and legislators.

Nobody expected Saturday’s Operation PUSH protest at Chuck’s Gun Shop Range to be anything other than a circus of the bizarre. However, nobody anticipated that an address by a Chicago priest would include a call for the murder of a suburban gun shop owner and legislators who oppose gun control.
During an address at an anti-gun rally in front of Chuck’s, Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina’s Church, exhorted the crowd to “drag” shop owner, John Riggio, from his shop “like a rat” and “snuff” him.  Rev. Pfleger went on to tell the crowd that legislators that vote against gun control legislation should be “snuffed” as well. As many know, “snuff” is slang for especially violent murder.

In case you think the ISRA is exaggerating, you can listen to his comments here.  These are the kinds of folks we’re dealing with here.  We must pass gun control to save lives by first murdering people.

If John Riggio is anything like gun shop owners here, it would have been entertaining to see them actually try that.

This article suggests that there has been no impact either way from Missouri’s concealed carry law:

“When they were debating this, one side was saying it was going to reduce crime and another was saying it was going to cause gunfights in the streets,” Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I really haven’t seen either. It’s really a nonissue right now. You’re not having fights in the streets, but it’s not saving the world either.”

Seems to be the story everywhere this has happened.  I’m happy to see they close out the article with a great statement on why regulating concealed weapons at all is just about completely pointless:

In St. Charles County, sheriff’s Lt. Craig McGuire said that while there have been no reports of such infractions there, by its nature a concealed weapon would not be obvious anyway.

Exactly.  Which is why criminals don’t really think much of ignoring these laws.

This article explains the struggle for the GOP to maintain it’s traditional dominance of the Philadelphia suburbs.  No single political party has clearly wielded total power in the state over any length of time.  I think this has been healthy for our politics in general.

The consequences of this are enormous for the balance of power in state politics. For decades, support from these suburban Philadelphia counties has been crucial for GOP success statewide. To control the state, Republicans needed the suburbs. But beginning in the 1990s, the suburbs began to tilt toward the Democrats in some very important elections.

This erosion in GOP support can be traced across presidential, statewide, and congressional elections.

I worry very much about Pennsylvania turning into a single party run state like New Jersey, New York, or Massachusetts.  I am not pleased with the political climate in any of those states, and corruption is a more serious problem when a single party has total control over political institutions.

This, quite honestly, is the fault of the Republicans themselves.  Pennsylvania suburbanites voted Republican because of fiscal issues.  We’re not a markedly socially conservative area.   With the GOP having all but abandoned any sense of fiscal discipline or smaller government, it’s leaving GOP supporters in the area hard pressed to find reasons to keep affiliating.   I myself used to be a Republican until the national party pissed me off with their crap.  They have yet to do anything of substance to bring me back into the fold.  I have been willing to punish the party for by voting for some Democrats in certain races, and I will continue to do so.

But if the Philadelphia Suburbs start voting in lock step with the city, I’ll move to Texas or Arizona faster than you can blink.  I have no desire to leave Pennsylvania, but I won’t live in a state run by Democrats.  I’ve seen our neighbors go that route, and it doesn’t end with happy results.

… if our ban on private sales actually works.  From Wisconsin:

With all of the violence on Milwaukee streets, three mothers who lost their sons in a triple shooting are working to keep guns out of the wrong hands.The three are rallying behind a gun-control bill to be introduced to the state Assembly Tuesday which also has support from Milwaukee’s most prolific gun dealer.

Hey folks, we already did this in Pennsylvania. Guess what? It doesn’t work. Now Philadelphia says one-gun-a-month will solve the problem. What happens when that doesn’t work? There’s no gun control measure that will fail spectacularly enough that the politicians and anti-gun groups won’t call for more of the same.

You’d think a gun dealer would know better than this. I have to wonder if he’s willing to sell out other gun owners so he can get more business by forcing people into using FFLs for background checks.

According to SayUncle, the kid that shot the monster pig is getting hate mail from PETA types.   I have to wonder how many of them would have been happier if the hog had killed the kid.   I wonder how many of them know that was a very real possibility with a wild pig this large.