Snowflakes in Hell

It’s often said that a conservative is a liberal who’s just been mugged. It’s probably just as often that someone who’s been affected by violence turns into an outspoken and hard working activist for gun control. I know of few people who are truly passionate about the issue who haven’t been personally affected. It’s not surprising, really. We’re passionate about stopping them because we also have a personal stake in the outcome as shooters.

The Ventura County Reporter has a profile of Tim Heyne, who has been spreading gun control ordinances throughout Southern California:

That black day occurred on Memorial Day in 2005. Heyne and his wife, Jan, were with Heyne’s best friend, Steve Mazin, when Mazin’s neighbor, who held a grudge, approached the trio and shot them all. Mazin and Jan were killed. Heyne was left for dead with three bullets to the chest, but he survived and eventually recovered. All this, despite the fact that Mazin had a restraining order.

Mazin’s neighbor, as someone who had a restraining order on them, was not legally able to possess or purchase a firearm.

“Gun control is an incendiary term which the opposition likes to use because it sounds very condescending,” he said. “It speaks to the Second Amendment. What we are about is having sensible, responsible and accountable gun laws to keep the public safe.”

The group Heyne refers to as “we” is the Brady Center headquartered in Washington, D.C. Heyne organized the Ventura County chapter, ignoring the warnings from seasoned gun control advocates that it was the Wild West of gun ownership. In recognition of this feat, the Brady Center will be honoring Heyne for his work on gun control issues in November.

California is the wild west of Gun Ownership? Maybe in 1883, but California’s shooting community has been taking a beating since 1989, and isn’t wielding a whole lot of political power these days. I’m all for having “sensible, responsible and accountable laws that keep the public safe”. But gun control doesn’t do that. Mr. Heyne is a shining example of its failure, as the federal and state laws that disarm people subject to a restraining order did not stop someone that was intent on murder. Is it so crazy to suggest that an honest man with a gun could have?

UPDATE: Joe Huffman has a telling quote as well.

Here’s a pretty cool marketing video put out by Izhmash Arsenal in Russia. It covers the complete Kalashnikov line, the SVD, AN-94 and Bizon submachine gun.

Dave Hardy talks about the problem of finding a place to shoot.  We have this problem here in Pennsylvania too, at least if you’re new to shooting and are looking for a place to shoot outdoors.  The Pennsylvania Game Commissions has, in the past few years, closed down most of the rifle ranges in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and a few more in other parts of the state.  I expect they will never reopen.

It makes me wonder what’s happened to all that Pittman-Robertson money we pay every time we buy a rifle or ammo.

Corzine is bragging about New Jersey being set up with ATF’s eTrace system:

E-trace is a nationwide database maintained by the ATF that lists a firearm’s first purchaser, date of purchase and the retailer from which it was purchased. The information is compiled from police records of gun purchases provided by local departments, but until today was only accessible by the ATF and the police department that provided it.

Can someone explain to me how this isn’t a registry? How do they have this data if the NICS records are being properly destroyed as they are required to be under the law?

UPDATE: Dave Hardy thinks the reporter doesn’t know what he/she is talking about.  I can easily buy that.  When have they ever on this issue?

Apparently the PICS system will be down Sept 2nd through the 6th.  I think if the government needs to take these systems down for maintenance, that’s fine.  But during that period when the system is down sales can proceed without the check, and the check can be done later when the system comes back online.  I’ll bet if that were the law, the Pennsylvania State Police would suddenly find they can do maintenance a lot more quickly, or invest in a system that could stay up.   When was the last time you heard of Amazon.com going down for maintenance?  And they are storing a lot more data than PICS.

I agree with Scott Adams that conspiracy theories are a boatload of fun, as are the people who sincerely believe in them.  Interesting enough, I think he touches on the appeal of them:

I believe the intent of the movie is to alarm people into being more skeptical of their government. It had the opposite effect on me. It made me happy to think there might be a plan. If the war on terror is real, it scares the shit out of me. But if, as the movie claims, it’s entirely manufactured, and the war in Iraq is meant to be a permanent conflict to sell weapons and control oil – that is much less scary. It means the war will stay where it is and no one will “follow me home.”

It also means the nuclear bomb ambitions of Iran are a lie. That’s one less thing to worry about. All I have to do is stay out of the National Guard and invest my money in defense contractors and I’ll be safe and happy. Those shadowy rich guys are doing a great job!

I’ve long believed that the Truther movement is largely a reaction to a fear of what the actual truth behind 911 (that it was committed by 19 middle eastern hijackers who were, in their minds, fighting a jihad against the United States) would mean.  I think most conspiracy people are actually, even if unknowingly, influenced by Scott’s feeling.  I think he was just honest enough with his feelings to recognize it for what it was.

If 9/11 was a conspiracy by our own government, than it’s not so scary.  Presumably we can expose the truth, make people aware, and change things.  It’s certainly a lot easier to quell uncertainty and unease by adopting this kind of view, than it is to believe the solution will involve a lot of killing, uncertainty, and the possibility of more attacks from people out there who hate us, and who we can’t influence or control.

My friend and sometimes co-blogger Brad points me to this page, about a Wikipedia search engine, that finds out who’s editing.  It’s a really neat idea, and interesting to read through, but overall I don’t like what the consequences of it will be.   Chances are the people making these edits from various companies are in no way authorized by that company’s leadership to make those kinds of changes to the Wiki.   What this is going to do is cause companies to either block access to this valuable resource, or severely restrict internet usage, at the detriment to their employees ability to find information.

Corporate leaders tend to be very risk averse, think little of their employees, and hate bad publicity.  They will respond to this kind of bad publicity in predictable ways, and it’ll be all our loss.

New Jovian Thunderbolt asks what we would do if we got half a million dollars, but we could only spend it on firearms.   The answer for that one is easy.   You spend 100,000 in a nice registered mini-gun, and the rest on ammo.   Problem solved.

I have some advise on how to attract commenters to your blog:

1. Don’t use Blogger
2. See rule number one.

Seriously, I hate blogger’s comment stuff.  WordPress remembers all your critical info.  Blogger integrates with gmail, which I find annoying, because it always wants me to post with my blogger profile.   I have to manually select “Other” and fill in my blogger creds, then pass the word verification, which I get wrong half the time somehow.  That’s not even mentioning comments are a whole separate page.  There have been more than a few times I’ve gone to comment on a blogspot blog and thought “nah, it’s not worth the trouble.”

A lot of people who are disappointed that Bitter is taking a break from blogging suggest that maybe we should combine our blog. There are no short term plans for such an endeavor, but for those of you who want to keep up with Bitter, I will be happy to update. I will, of course, credit her for things she points out to me as well.

If we do decide to combine our blogs, that makes for some amusing name combination possibilities. All I can think of is:

“Bitches in Hell”
“Bitchy Snowflakes”
“Snowflakes Are Falling on Your Bitch, Yo”

Maybe some of you have better suggestions.