Snowflakes in Hell

Looks like another attempt by the House Democrats to shift my taxes around in ways I don’t like:

The committee approved House Bill 1600, by Rep. David Levdansky, D-Forward. He proposes raising about $2.5 billion by doing three things. He would raise the state sales tax by 0.5 percent (making it 6.5 percent in most counties but 7.5 percent in Allegheny and Philadelphia counties.)

He would also raise the personal income tax rate by .22 percent, to a total of 3.29 percent. Those two moves would take effect July 1. Together they would generate an additional $1.5 billion, to which he would add the expected $1 billion from slots revenue once all 14 casinos are up and running. The resulting $2.5 billion would be used to lower property taxes.

Mr. Levdansky expects such tax shifting will slice several hundred dollars from the average homeowner’s property tax bills. The full House is expected to debate the bill in November.

Several hundred dollars?  That’s it?  The tax increase will cost me a more than that.   Is the concept of cutting spending and using that to cut my property taxes so hard to do?  Maybe if we didn’t have a governor wasting money on things like building soccer stadiums in Chester, we might be able to pull it off.

Quite a bold statement buying the Distinguished Life Membership.  Even I’m not a life member.  The one thing I’d remind everyone is that if you’re an NRA member, you should also be aware of the Political Victory Fund, or as I like to call it, the “Defeat Hillary Fund”.  Thanks to our lovely campaign finance laws, PVF can only be supported through member donations.   Thanks John McCain!

Jayne is posting another screed over at the HuffPo.  We will do this one in the style of a fisking.

It was never my intention to rant against the National Rifle Association, or law enforcement, but instead call for a closer look at a national ethos which enables, and legitimizes, the use of weapons, and deadly force in lieu of dedicated problem solving.

Have you ever tried dedicated problem solving with someone who has a gun or a kinfe pointed at you?  Would it be shocking that the criminals out on the streets, many who would kill you for a quarter, or just for the thrill, aren’t really that interested in working through their problems?   Are you really this delusional?  If you’d rather be a victim, I have no problem.  That’s your choice.  But don’t berate those who choose not to be.

Why this egregious absence of legislation attempting to stem the proliferation of assault rifles, hand guns, and illegal firearms in the past several years? A virile, righteous, and omnipresent gun lobby has successfully managed to silence their opposition, as has a vice president who, while he may not have the best aim, is himself a devout hunter, and a foreign policy which caters to the hunter ethos. Silencers aren’t only being used for firearms; they’re now handy ways to stifle dissent, too.

What outrageous ignorance and arrogance.  Do you know anything about the “hunter ethos”?  Do you know what an assault rifle is?  Do you know they have been illegal for several decades already?  Have you ever spent any time talking to hunters and other outdoor sportsmen?  No one is stifling your dissent.  You have a right to speak your mind, and we have a right to speak ours.  Any anti-gun person is perfectly free to come on here and comment.  We’d be happy to have a dialog.  Interested Jayne?

From the beginning of time, the forces of darkness have somehow managed to overpower, and silence, the forces of light. This explains the phenomenon of extinction. And, if things continue at this rate, we, too, will be staring down the barrel of an existential shotgun. One can only hope that it isn’t loaded.

Jayne, we’ve had firearms as a technology for at least half a millennium.  Why is it only now that we are suddenly so depraved as a society that we can no longer deal with them?  What a dour world view you have to believe darkness will always win in the end.  How can you look at the technological wonders we’ve created as a civilization, how the values embodied in The Enlightenment have been spreading all over the world, and conclude that the forces of darkness are winning and will win out in the end?  I would hope people of your persuasion would have a little more optimism than that.

In 2006, Robert Casey unseated Rick Santorum from his senate seat.  To be honest, I decided to vote for Casey, despite the fact that Santorum had an excellent record on guns, and was endorsed by the NRA.  I voted for Casey because Santorum, quite honestly, scared the hell out of me with his views on a lot of social issues.  Casey got a good NRA rating, and kept saying he was a friend of gun owners, so I figured he’d be willing to fight for us.

I would appear to have been wrong.  I don’t think Casey is going to join the ranks of Chuck Schumer or Diane Feinstein any time soon, but he certainly doesn’t seem to be aware of the issues that are of concern to us, as his generic form letter response would indicate.

I’ve been singularly unimpressed by Senator Casey since taking office, mostly because I haven’t seen him doing anything.   Not that I want politicians to be busy doing things, other nursing a mild case of alcoholism in the local DC bars and eateries.  If more politicians did that instead of making laws, we might actually be better off.  But if Senator Casey dropped off the face of the earth, I don’t think I’d notice.  Would anyone notice?

Clearly, if The Senator wants to be a friend of gun owners, if he wants to earn his NRA rating, and maybe get an endorsement someday, he needs to get his staff to do a better job of communicating with gun owners.  We’re an important political constituency in this state, even for Democrats, and we’re not impressed by generic one-size-fits-all form letters.

Thirdpower has a post detailing a fairly disturbing program that will be run in DC, that includes deputization of DC police as federal agents

Some days, the unit will employ “high-intensity traffic stops,” pulling over cars for minor offenses to try to establish probable cause to search vehicles. Officers also will use informants to help them secure search warrants for suspected gun holders.

Employ “high-intensity traffic stops?”  I’d rather call it by its real name. “high-intensity crapping on the fourth amendment.”

Robb Allen has a rather hilarious example of what the gun industry’s marketing would be like if they actually were marketing to violent criminals, as the anti-gunners propaganda always claims.

Some of you might remember that earlier this year, The Brady Campaign put out a piece called No Gun Left Behind: The Gun Lobby’s Campaign to Push Guns Into Colleges and Schools. Howard Nemerov, who is the “unofficial” investigative analyst for NRA News, has produced an excellent piece [PDF] that highlights many of the Brady Campaigns deceptions in this report. Let’s take a look at one:

To bolster their claims, Brady’s report contains an appendix of stories where alleged CCW licensees broke the law. Of the two cases researched so far, both of these incidents have proven to be self-defense, while Brady insinuates both cases were murder.

Color me unsurprised. In the report it is also detailed that Brady claimed a CCL holder, Jon Loveless, shot a man because he gave him a “weird look”. Howard manages to dig up the context for that accusation:

Loveless told detectives he thought it was going to be a friendly meeting to discuss a piece of radio equipment, but when he pulled his truck alongside Eichhorn’s truck he said Eichhorn had a gun pointed at him.

Loveless, who has a concealed weapons permit, said he retrieved his gun from his glove compartment and pointed it at Eichhorn.

“Loveless claims that he directed Eichhorn to drop the weapon but that Eichhorn got a weird look” on his face,” Detective Jon Thompson wrote. “Believing that Eichhorn was about to fire his handgun, Loveless instead fired his handgun several times.”

So it would seem that even the examples of CCL holders that Brady has managed to dig up and hold out as criminals are turning out not to be criminals after all. Download and read Howard’s whole report.

This post from Clayton got me thinking about something I wrote last year when I was still writing on Live Journal for an audience of about 25 people.

When evaluating current events, a good knowledge of history is essential for being able to place those events in context and understand them. It makes sense why even very educated leftists often overlook history, or seldom appeal to it; leftism is a forward looking philosophy that desires to achieve the perfection of man.

The history of man is replete with evidence that he is not perfectible. Human history is really nothing but horror and brutality, followed by periods of civilization, which also contain horror and brutality, just on a lesser scale, and accompanied by wonderful achievements.

I am not a religious man, but I do think, as a philosophical construct, the Judeo-Christian notion that man is fallen from God is a worthwhile one. An agnostic would say that man is just a primate species that has language and thumbs, and otherwise isn’t all that different from most other hominids. Can we really expect perfection of a bunch of damned dirty apes with big brains?

I don’t believe in the perfectibility of man, but I do believe man can and should better himself, which is what our civilization, based on the values of The Enlightenment, is about. The radical elements of Islam wish to take us back to a pre-enlightenment age, essentially destroying our current civilization. Many people on the right and center right wonder how those of the radical anti-war left can be so dismissive of radical Islam as a threat, since it stands against everything the left claims to hold dear. But I think their desire to perfect man, rather than accept him as fallen, offers an explanation. While those of the left are products of our civilization, they despise its lack of perfection, and therefore have little issue with it being swept away and replaced.

I agree with John Adams that you need a moral society to have civilization, but you don’t need a religious society to achieve that. It is possible to achieve moral status without being religious. But you do need a population that buys into the moral constructs of your civilization. Where people like Clayton and I sometimes find disagreement is on what those moral constructs ought to be.

I think the moral constructs embodied in our Constitution, which I would note does not once mention God, and the other founding documents of our nation, which sometimes do, are our nation’s moral foundations. This was best summed up by James Madison in Federalist 51:

It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

Madison was aware that what was to become the federal government was to rely primary on flawed human being for its just administration. Our founders harbored few notions about man’s perfectibility, and thankfully our system was well designed to be administered by flawed human beings.

As much as I disagree with some religious folks on a great many social issues, the greatest risk we face as a nation is from those who desire to put too much faith in men, not those who put too much faith in God.

I anxiously await Governor Schwarzenegger’s signature on California’s soon to be passed “Assault Matches Ban“

We’ve all heard that line from hunting aficionados. We’ve certainly seen groups like American Hunters and Shooters Association claim that we can have “reasonable” gun laws, and it won’t threaten hunting. In the past few weeks we’ve seen examples in the State of California and the State of New Jersey, that show hunters have a lot to fear when their gun rights are infringed.

The State of New Jersey has been eroding gun rights and slowly strangling its shooting culture since 1968. There are still a lot of shooters over in The Garden State, but they have been in the political wilderness since the early 1990s.

The State of New Jersey, under Governor Corzine, has canceled the bear hunt for the past several years, despite serious problems in the Garden State with overpopulation of bears, and increasing bear/human encounters. Now the animal rights groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States, and PETA, want to get the legislature to put animal rights activists on the Fish and Game Council:

Under current law, the council is made up of 11 members appointed by the governor, with stipulations that three of the members must be farmers and six must be nominated by the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen.

The legislation proposes to reduce the council to seven members, with two appointments reserved for farmers and no appointments reserved for sportsmen. The bill also alters language defining the council’s mission — deleting the goal of “development of fish and game for public recreation and food supply” and instead defining the mission as investigating the use of “non-lethal alternatives for dealing with wildlife conflicts” and exploring “ecotourism” opportunities.

Hunters need to let that sink in real good. Activists in New Jersey destroyed gun rights first. Now they are coming after hunting. Fortunately, hunters staged a successful rally, with about 500 sportsmen, to protest A3275 and S2041.

It’s important to note that the entire New Jersey Assembly is up for election next Tuesday. If you’re in the Garden State, make sure to vote the bozos who are supporting this crap out of office, and vote for the people who are behind sportsmen.

But New Jersey hunters aren’t alone in their struggle. Everyone knows that Arnold signed the lead ammo ban in California Condor habitat, which effectively ends hunting in large swaths of California. Now it turns out they are trying to push that in Arizona as well. I doubt they will find so hearty a reception to that idea in the Grand Canyon State as in California, but it’s important to note that they eroded gun rights in California before the foundation was set for going after hunters.

I’m hoping this presents a good case for the reason that hunters and shooters need to stick together. Our fates are inexorably intertwined. Let’s hang together… I think everyone is aware of the alternative at this point.

Remember these guys?  Well, apparently they are back, and this time refusing to take ads for gun shows.

Wow, this particular post got me pretty riled up:

As Buzzflash says, you can thank the NRA for this “surge” in the vicious drug wars devouring thousands of people in Mexico. As the Post notes, the NRA-led lapse of the U.S. ban on assault weapons is a primary cause of the escalation in the scale of violence.

It helps to know what you’re talking about before typing out accusations like this. The assault weapons ban applied only to semi-automatic rifles, not to automatic rifles like AK-47s. AK-47s have been illegal to import into this country since 1968. You won’t find them at gun shows, because they are illegal. What you will find are semi-automatic rifles that look like AK-47s.

Grenades and grenade launchers are destructive devices and are heavily regulated by the federal government, and generally forbidden to civilian use. There is no such thing as a “cop killer” bullet. Any center fire rifle cartridge will penetrate soft body armor, including rounds common for hunting.

Picked up largely at the many unrestricted gun shows in the Southwest and smuggled in piecemeal past overwhelmed – or bribed – border guards, the heavy weaponry is overpowering Mexican law enforcement and degrading civic society.

Except all the same laws that apply normally, which include background checks for purchases, filling out your form 4473, showing ID and proof of legal residence are as much required at gun shows at everywhere else.

The assault weapon ban lapsed in September 2004, with little demur from the Democrats, who were too busy chasing the mythical “NASCAR vote” to risk looking “soft” on selling souped-up, body-shredding death machines to anyone who put down the cash – terrorists, druglords, mafia goons.

It was allowed to expire because it was worthless. Machine guns are already, for all practical purposes, illegal. The assault weapons ban covered things like pistol groups, flash suppressors, and bayonet lugs. Can you explain how any of these impacts the function of the rifle?

Read the rest of the post. It’s vile stuff. I sincerely hope this blogger can put aside the hate, and start having a serious debate with us about the merits of the laws he proposes we pass.

SayUncle mentioned that Jayne Lyn Stahl was getting some vile e-mail from pro-gun people. She suggested death treats too, though we never saw any of them. Neither, I would wager, did this blogger.

Look folks, I have no doubt at all that there are bozos out there on Al Gore’s Internets. I am intimately familiar with how they operate, and the kinds of things they say. Color me skeptical, though, that she’s getting a barrage of death threats. I would buy one or two. Death threats ought to be reported to the FBI, which I hope Ms. Stahl is doing for those that sent them to her. These aren’t people we want being part of our community.

We’d all be happy to hear and blog about the results of whatever interaction Ms. Stahl has with law enforcement on this matter.

UPDATE: Robb says in the comments:

That site you link to is funny. Bitches about non-proven death threats yet has a banner that calls for the beheading of political opponents. Priceless.

True, but then again I have a joke about Rudy pushing Hilly in front of an oncoming NYC subway train. Then again, I’m not sure this guy is joking.

Diane Edbril, Executive Director of CeaseFire Pennsylvania, has a letter to the editor in the Daily News:

AS EXECUTIVE director of CeaseFire PA, I’d like to respond to some comments made by letter-writer Tom McCourt. Contrary to Mr. McCourt’s assertions, CeaseFire PA has no interest in taking guns away from responsible, law-abiding Pennsylvanians.

Unless that gun happens to be an evil “assault weapon”, such as this one, which is considered an assault weapon under New Jersey’s ban, which is held up by these people as a model for the country.

Our only goals are to reduce gun violence, injury and death. To that end, we support measures that will make it harder for convicted felons and violent youth to obtain handguns, as they do so easily now.

Pennsylvania already has laws on the book that bar violent felons and people under the age of 18 from possessing handguns. It is illegal to sell a handgun to anyone under the age of 21. It is illegal to sell, give, transfer or lend a firearm to someone who is prohibited from possessing a firearm. It is illegal to sell a handgun to someone without a licensed dealer or a county sheriff handling the paperwork requirements and background check.

Evidence shows that when gun laws are tougher, criminals have a harder time getting guns, while legitimate gun owners remain unaffected.

What evidence? Pennsylvania already has a lot of laws on the books to stop criminals from getting guns. They aren’t working. Why is the solution more? Ms. Edbril, would you care to answer Just One Question?

Moreover, CeaseFire PA, like the writer, also supports tougher sentences for illegal handgun traffickers, increased funding for police and more support for education and rehabilitation.

Funny, I only ever see you guys lobbying for gun control laws.

We do not support legislation action in place of any of these other interventions, but in addition.

Oh I understand now. You won’t support getting tough on criminals unless you get your gun control laws.

Only through comprehensive action on a variety of fronts will we succeed in reducing Pennsylvania’s unacceptable rate of gun violence.

Absent Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s crime rate is on par with Western Europe. Philadelphia has a crime problem because the justice system there is a revolving door for criminals and the cities political leadership refuses to do anything about the problem short of blaming Harrisburg and the rest of the state for is. Forgive me if we don’t want to give in to their cop outs.

We invite the writer to visit the CeaseFirePA.org and Handgun-Sanity.org Web sites so they can get their facts straight.

I already did. You guys should really update your web site before you tell people to go to it. There are broken links, and half the events are out of date. You might think you guys are having trouble raising money or something.

Diane Edbril, Executive Director

CeaseFire PA

The Gary Indiana suit is moving forward despite the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.  We’ll probably need to get some precedent from higher courts before this really has any teeth.  It’s very telling of how activist lower courts are willing to be on this issue to ignore a federal law that blatantly applies to this situation.  The people who allowed this to go forward have no place sitting on the bench.

Reader, blogger and NRA certified instructor Brian is offering to take newbies shooting in the Hampton Roads, VA area, and add any other instructors to the list if they want to add their name.

I was reading this excellent bit linked to by Insty:

Simon makes a strong point when he writes, “You want to have some ideology to hang onto, some method of organizing everything, but the moment you settle on one thing, if you’re even partially awake, it kicks you in the head.” The world isn’t so simple as to be efficiently run via a bumper sticker slogan. The problem, though, is figuring out where responsible trade-offs end and cheerleading for one’s team begins. It’s one thing to be an “adult;” it’s quite another to be a party hack willing to abandon all principle when necessary to defend the decisions of the leadership.

That’s a smart observation.  I certainly hope if I start wandering too far one way or another, people will say something.

After a very good interview on Cam & Company on Friday, Sebastian has an update about his permit to carry woes in Maryland.  I think he’s successfully put the corporal in an uncomfortable political spot, and if I were a betting man, I’m guessing he gets his license in the end.  I’m glad I live in Pennsylvania.

I certainly wish him luck.  What we need to fight crime are more Sebastians, not more silly gun control laws.

If this can happen in Arizona, is there anywhere it can’t happen? Competitive skeet shooting kid left a box of shotgun ammo in the back of her car and got caught when she got a parking ticket. We seemed to do better back in the days when schools had rifle teams than we are today.

Bruce has some interesting information about the violent tendencies of a certain anti-gun journalist.

There’s an article by Jennifer Collins of Concurring Opinions describing why she thinks tossing out the gun ban might have a tremendous impact on crime-fighting The District:

I think it’s worth acknowledging the primary functions of the law as it’s used by prosecutors in DC: the gun ban is both a preventive detention statute and an intelligence-gathering tool. At one time when I was a prosecutor, we were prohibited from extending a plea offer in gun cases unless the defendant agreed to come into the office (with his attorney, of course) and be “debriefed” about his knowledge of criminal activity in the city. The statute was also a mechanism for locking up individuals perceived as violent, but against whom other cases could not be brought for whatever reason. It’s pretty simple to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual was in possession of a gun without a license and a lot tougher to prove that he committed a violent crime.

I have issues with this method just from a civil liberties standpoint.  The question should not be, as a society, what makes life easier for prosecutors and the police.  After all, it would make life for prosecutors easier to allow door to door searches of homes in bad neighborhood for drugs and guns, but we would, quite properly, find that unconstitutional and reprehensible.  This law is also guaranteed to disproportionately affect the law abiding.  If I were to be caught transporting a firearm through DC (DC claims FOPA doesn’t apply to them, stupidly enough), I have nothing to offer a prosecutor in terms of information or a deal, so they will just charge me with the weapons violation.  Robb is correct to point out:

I want the government to catch and prosecute criminals. What I fear is that Uncle Sam keeps broadening the definition of criminal to make it impossible to not be one.

I think government has an obligation not to cast such a large net that they catch the good people along with the bad.

But as Dave Hardy points out:

Those seem rather doubtful objectives for a law of this type… but even so, could have been met with almost any other form of law, even permissive CCW licensing. Odds are that persons suspected of ongoing violence already have a criminal record that would disqualify them, or at the very least, wouldn’t care for the attention that would follow filing an application.

I agree with Dave, and I think Ms. Collins overestimates the impact this will have on crime fighting.  How often are people being caught in their homes with a firearm rather than being pulled off the streets with a concealed firearm?  How often are people who are caught not already persons who are prohibited from possessing firearms?  Before assessing how large the impact would be, one would have to know these things.

SayUncle is correct to point out that machine guns are just as illegal here as they are in Mexico, yet they keep blaming American gun laws for violence in Mexico.   This is ridiculous, but it is a response to something ridiculous that our government is doing.

The War on Drugs has already ruined Colombia.  It seems it may ruin Mexico too.  In short, we’re bitching at the Mexicans because they aren’t doing enough to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, and the Mexicans are bitching at us because we’re not doing enough to stop the flow of guns into their country.

Both governments need to start facing reality that where there’s demand, the is always going to be someone willing to be there with the supply, and that market is guaranteed to be violent, no matter what laws you pass.

Bitter and I took a trip to Mount Vernon on Sunday.  I have to say, it’s quite a nice place to visit.   It’s good exercise for a walking tour, and of great historical interest.  For only a few dollars extra, you can get a yearly pass, which after we got done our tour, decided to upgrade our ticket so we could come back.  We plan on going back when the third floor is open in December, and then maybe once in the spring.  We also realized we need to add Fort Washington to our list of things to do in the DC area.

It was a good weekend, overall.  Traffic getting from Philly to DC and back was pretty light for the weekend, so I didn’t have a protracted amount of time spent on the road.  It definitely helps now that the summer driving season is over.

Brought to you by educrats in The Garden State.

Here’s what I get for being behind.   I got the same e-mail that SayUncle and Joe Huffman got, but I was busy all weekend and didn’t get a chance to post it:

Based on concerns raised by NRA, the House Appropriations Committee report on the Commerce/Justice/Science appropriations bill (H.R. 3093) includes the following language: 

“The committee has heard reports that [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] has pursued license revocations and denials against firearms dealers based on violations that consist largely of recordkeeping errors of various types that are unlikely to impede tracing investigations or prosecution of individuals who use firearms in crime.  The Committee encourages ATF to consider lesser gradation of sanctions for recordkeeping errors.”

This is a continuation of NRA’s longstanding efforts to reform the BATFE, and to ensure that any penalties administered by BATFE against FFLs appropriately fit the transgression and that BATFE does not abuse its authority.  Last spring, NRA-ILA secured passage in the U.S. House of H.R. 5092 (http://www.nraila.org//News/Read/NewsReleases.aspx?ID=8224), a bill that included many reforms to the process by which BATFE punishes violations of federal law and regulations (more information on bill here: http://www.nraila.org//Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=205). These reforms would have provided a fairer process for FFLs accused of violations.  Passage of the bill followed on the heels of House hearings (also prompted by NRA’s efforts) on BATFE abuses with respect to FFL enforcement and gun show operations. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to consider the bill before adjourning for the year. 

Others in the pro-gun grassroots community have reported on this issue, including Ryan Horsley of Red’s Trading Post, and numerous other bloggers.  Working together, it is our hope that we can continue our mutual efforts to reform BATFE once and for all to reduce and eliminate unjust harassment of legitimate gun dealers.

It’s a good start.  It’ll be very very difficult to get any meaningful reform out of this Congress.  While they might be scared into inaction by the NRA, the anti-gun leaders in Congress aren’t going to bend over backwards to kiss our asses either.  At the very least, the ATF bureaucracy knows that Congress may be less than happy with some of their activities.  But they also know they probably don’t have much to fear from the people running Congress.  While I am not at all happy with the Republican Party being a bunch of corrupt and incompetent boobs, I’ll take incompetence over Hillary and Pelosi any day of the week.