Snowflakes in Hell

I say Tam gets to moderate the next presidential debate.

This amusing post from Scott Adams reminds me of my gambling experience in Reno while attending the Gun Blogger Rendezvous.  Scott suggests that casinos eventually just set up ATMs to make noise and flash lights so people feel entertained.

I was amused at the notion of this, and wondered if people would fall for it.  It’s possible, I mean, we all spent a lot of money converting our hard earned dollars into flashes and noise for entertainment without any hope of a payoff, other than better skills to doing so ;)

Looks like we know how the EU Bureaucracy is going to respond to the school shooting in Finland.  In addition to raising the age of possession to 18, they also plan:

 In addition to making the age-limit more rigid, the EU wants its member states by 2014 to set up computerized databanks containing detailed information on each firearm and the names and addresses of both the supplier and buyer.

The data would be accessible to police and judicial authorities and would be kept on file for 20 years.

I’d say “Oh my, how horrible!” except that’s pretty much what we have here now, except the records aren’t computerized.

There’s a rumor circulating among Ron Paul fans out there that NRA was snubbing Ron Paul by not listing him as a candidate on the web site showing here. Well, the reason is because he didn’t come to the Celebration of American Values where the NRA hosted many presidential aspirants. I decided to e-mail them and ask them about this, and here was the response I got:

Congressman Ron Paul was invited to the National Rifle Association’s Celebration of American Values. The NRA did not receive a response from him. As a result, there is no mention of him in the article. If Congressman Paul had accepted the invitation, or contacted the NRA prior to the event, every effort would have been made to accommodate his appearance. In fact, NRA did work with a number of candidates who did not RSVP and we facilitated their appearance in person or via videotaped message. The same courtesy would have been given to the Ron Paul campaign had they contacted us. If and when the NRA has another candidate forum, we hope that Congressman Paul would participate - either in person, or via videotaped message.

I have to wonder how many people who started spreading this rumor even bothered to try to find out what the truth was.  At least the guy I liked to e-mailed.

We always hear the Brady’s whine about how preemption prevents local communities from being able to enact reasonable gun control that is appropriate for those communities.   Apparently in Illinois, they are pushing for preemption on local ordinances in an effort to close FFLs, like Chuck’s Gun Shop.

So, preemption is bad, unless if course it puts gun shops out of business, then it’s good.   Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership indeed.

… if he shot himself in the foot with one. The Brady’s are incorrect that Jay Fox had an AK-47:

In last night’s Republican YouTube debate, a questioner submitted this video of himself shooting what looks like an AK-type semi-automatic assault rifle at a target in the desert. In less than two seconds, self-identified NRA Life Member Jay Fox fires off six rounds. (Check the timing of the video yourself.)

It’s not an AK-47. You can see clearly in the screen shots that it’s not:

That’s clearly a monte carlo stock, and not a pistol grip that you’d expect to find on a Kalashnikov.

The magazine lacks the banana shape of the AK-47 magazine. Pretty clearly this is some type of .223 semi-automatic rifle. And, like we’ve been saying, any semi-automatic rifle can fire six shots quickly, even ones that are available, as this firearm would be, in all the states that have assault weapons bans because this firearm is not an assault weapon by any legal definition. And no state bans 10 round magazines.

So Paul may have thought this was a clever “gotcha” moment to introduce his admonishment that gun violence isn’t funny, but it’s another distortion. Besides, what does a guy having some pinking fun with a semi-automatic rifle in the desert have to do with gun violence? Do you think Jay Fox is going to go mow down a school next? This tells you a lot about how these people think.

UPDATE: Turns out Jay Fox is a resident of California, which bans assault weapons. So that rifle is most definitely NOT an assault weapon. Brady wants the entire country to pass a California style ban, yet they are still unhappy with this ordinary semi-automatic rifle’s rate of fire, which any self-loading firearm is capable of. Of course, they say they don’t want to ban all semi-automatic rifles, but do you believe them? I don’t.

UPDATE: I just got an e-mail from Jay Fox. It’s a Kel-Tec SU-16 rifle, which is not an assault weapon, and legal in California. He also mentioned the shotgun in the video was unloaded, and was tossed rather than handed for effect. Hey, it worked didn’t it? His video got picked. I thought it was pretty good.

Clayton has a rather amusing story involving a moose and some power lines.

David is prompting gun owners to contact their Attorney General. Yesterday I sent a letter off to Tom Corbett who is Attorney General for Pennsylvania. He’s on the short list for a run for Governor when Fast Eddie’s term is up in 2010, and I think this would be a great way for him to get a leg up on other Republicans candidates, and provide some hope for gun owners in Pennsylvania who are getting sick of Ed Rendell.

Bitter and I were talking last night about how it would be great if we could get briefs filed by attorneys generals from enough states to re-ratify the second amendment. That would be a powerful message to The Court.

Let me know if you need help with figuring out how to contact your state attorney general. It’s important that we get on this, because the stakes have never been higher.

So, anti-gun forces are on the march in Pennsylvania with the help of our Governor, to rally Mayors around the state to make a final push to convince the legislature to infringe on that which shall not be questioned.

In Washington, where Joyce is funding a conspiracy against the federal and Washington constitutions in an effort to get folks fired up about gun control in that state.

In Virginia now, they are pushing to end preemption, hoping that the change in power in the Virginia Senate will lend them some good fortune.

What is it we’re witnessing here?   My opinion: desperation.   They have to score a victory, and with the Heller case looming, it’s more important now than ever.  If they can show no political progress on the issue, and Heller wins, they are in a lot of trouble.  Bryan Miller may be ho-hum about it, but I believe within the next year we have the opportunity, if we work hard and are vigilant enough, to end the current incarnation of the gun control movement.

Don’t get me wrong, gun control isn’t going away.  But a Heller win will force advocates of it to change tactics.  It could put us on the offensive in a big way, and they know it.  The immediate practical significance of Heller might be slight, but it’s a huge rhetorical defeat for the gun control movement.  I predict if Heller wins, within several years you’ll see new opponents on this issue, with different tactics and ideas, with the debate on terms more favorable to gun rights.

So tonight I took the 10/22 to Indoor Silhouette night.  We’re shooting at chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams at 25 yards.  I scored 22 and 25.  Standing position has never something I’ve been particularly good at, so I am hoping continuing to do this will improve my skills in this area.   Maybe next time I will do better.  The 10/22 was having issues because I haven’t cleaned it in a while.  I’m thinking maybe a nice bolt action 22 is in order for this type of shooting.

Bryan Miller is ho hum about the Supreme Court taking the Heller case.  Joe Huffman and Thirdpower are already on it.  Joe says:

[The second amendment is] overwhelmingly categorical and never been used to overturn a law since it was adopted, therefore we shouldn’t take it seriously and can enact laws that violate it without concern to the constitutionality of the law. Interesting logic. So, Mr. Miller, do you advocate treating the 13^th amendment in the same way?

Read the whole thing.  I actually think Bryan is right.  The ruling won’t fundamentally be earthshaking…. over the short term.  But over the long term, I wouldn’t be so ho hum.  The first amendment similarly started out absent any earthshaking ruling, and with broad license for the government to regulate speech.  Somewhere along the line, free speech went from this:

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Schenck v. US, 1919

to what we have today, which are broad free speech protections that would never allow for something like the Espionage Act to stand today.  I similarly expect the early second amendment cases to resemble the early first amendment cases.  I don’t think the Supreme Court will ever bar all regulations of firearms, but I suspect the end result of this second amendment jurisprudence will probably leave us with much less gun control than Bryan Miller would like.  I agree with Joe; you’re seeing masked frustration.

Jim Geraghty thinks Ron Paul is a non-movement, and his votes aren’t going to translate into support for other GOP candidates.

 I think that if and when Ron Paul ceases his presidential bid, his supporters will go in a thousand different directions, including many saying “to hell with politics.” They’re not inclined towards compromise, and they’re not going to be harnessed by half-a-loaf or even eighty-percent-of-the-loaf candidates. In other words, Ron Paul’s support is non-transferrable.

Ron Paul has the most traction I’ve seen a libertarian minded candidate get, but I think the war has a lot to do with that.  I have given up on libertarians for the most part, even though I still lean pretty heavily in that direction.  My disdain of gun control grew out of a generally libertarian attitude, but I’ve given up on the other aspects of libertarianism, because I’d prefer to focus my efforts on just seeing a few bits of my libertarian ideals adopted by candidates who can win.  I think that’s the only real way to be successful in politics, because politicians represent the aspirations of the various interest groups they represent, and those interest groups won’t always agree with each other.  People complain about always having a “lesser of two evils” choice, but the political process almost guarantees it.

If Ron Paul’s candidacy represents a real and permanent movement within the GOP, I think it might be able to turn into something.  It surely would drive the party, and its candidates, to adopt some more libertarian ideas.  But I agree with Jim that’s not going to happen.  When Ron loses the nomination, his supporters will scatter, and so will all the political capital they have built.  Libertarians need to be interested in playing the dirty game of politics if they want to come out of the political wilderness, but among libertarians, I don’t see too many indications of that.

Dustin offers a personal example of how you can’t depend on living in a “good neighborhood” to mean you’ll be safe from crime.  I also live in a decent neighborhood, but that didn’t stop an armed robber from trying to stick up an old man in the bathroom right down the street from me.  Fortunately, the old man pulled his mohaska, and the guy took off.

Ahab links to an editorial calling for us to recognize the “plight” of deer, and not make sport of it.  While I would not try to pass myself off as a wildlife biologist (most of whom are paid for by hunters) I’m pretty sure the plight of the deer pretty much revolves around eating, running away from shit, and humping other deer.   We have a word for things that don’t do anything except eat, run and hump: food.

Hard to hide it when things like this happen.  Now, I generally am not a “the media are a bunch of liberals out to get conservatives” kind of conservative — I generally won’t watch network news just because it’s crap, sensationalist tripe, but it’s hard for me to believe that was just coincidence, when there were 5000 videos.

It looks like The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership made sure to scrub their web site of Dennis Henigan stating that “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” before accusing the DC circuit of leaving certain parts out of the second amendment.  Why am I not surprised?

Both Joe Huffman and Ahab are reporting on Joyce latest efforts to push gun control, this time in Washington State. Joe says:

They have no interest in hearing anything other than their predetermined agenda. This isn’t a “conference”, it’s a conspiracy against rights and they should be arrested and be given a fair trial.

Yep, and they will keep trying. They are getting desperate to show some progress, and Washington has been one of the states they’ve thought they could turn. It’s been received wisdom in the anti-gun circles for a while that the state would be receptive to an assault weapons ban. I seem to recall before the federal ban expiring that the Brady’s, or some other gun control group, claimed that they would get several states to pass assault weapons bans if the federal ban were allowed to expire. So far their tally is a big fat zero. They are desperate, and I expect a push to be made on Washington. We beat them back in Pennsylvania, hopefully Washingtonians can too.

The big question is, will these only be available to “only ones”?  Of course, I think it’s cheating, but don’t tell Gene Simmons.

I had my friend Jason record the ABC news story in high definition for me just in case we had a nice spread like we had with the CBS story a month or so ago. While the ABC story was poorly researched and entirely one sided, it didn’t have any goodies, and their evidence table actually had a few Kalashnikovs laid out on it.

Ryan reported on this story as well. It’s pretty clear ABC didn’t even bother to research what the Assault Weapons Ban actually did, and didn’t do, or bother to do anything other than offer John Timoney and his anti-gun pals, a forum to push their crap on a media organization who doesn’t know any better, and couldn’t be bothered to check.

UPDATE: I agree with Illspirit that it’s quite likely police were using these firearms before Timoney decided to push his agenda in the media.

Looks like there was a shooting, along with further calls for more restrictions and bans.

The initiative includes a call for army weapons to remain in the barracks and a national gun register. The anti-gun proponents argue that the practice is no longer necessary from a military point of view.

But speakers from the rightwing Swiss People’s Party and the centre-right Radical Party say the decommissioning weakens Swiss security and is a vote of no confidence in soldiers.

I have to be honest, I’m not optimistic about the future of shooting in Switzerland.  Because their gun culture is so tied to militia service, which is increasingly unpopular among young people in the country, I don’t think it’ll survive if the militia system is abolished.  Unlike the US, there is no right to bear arms in Switzerland; it’s tightly tied with militia service.  If that goes, I think the shooting culture goes with it.

Eugene Volokh blogs about a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that mentions something very key: that the second amendment is an individual right.   Read the whole thing.

I know some people pooh pooh e-mail as being a poor means of communication with representatives, but I’m impressed that I got such a quick response from Representative Daylin Leach on the issue I e-mailed him about, basically outlining the same points I did in the post below. Here’s his response:

I understand your rhetorical point but I think comparing speech to guns (or any right to any other) is apples and oranges. We don’t restrict the number of E-mails because there would be no state interest (”compelling” or otherwise) in doing so. But where there is a compelling interest in restricting speech to preserve public safety, we do so.

In states where it has passed, one-gun-per-month has, at least on a temporal basis (comparing crime rates shortly before and shortly after the law went into effect) shown an average reduction in gun violence of about 30%.

It does seem to be common sense that if I want to go into a store and buy 20 cheap hand-guns to sell on the street, but find I can only buy one, that will mean 19 illegal gun-seekers will be disappointed and have to look elsewhere. Some will find a gun elsewhere right away, some won’t. If all straw-purchasers are similarly affected, it will be increasingly difficult (although certainly not impossible) to buy illegal guns on the street. This will save some (but not all) lives. But if it’s your 6 year old daughter who doesn’t get shot by a stray bullet as she plays on the porch; that will be very important to you.

I think we’ll probably have to agree to disagree on this. Actually, I included e-mail spam as the compelling state reason for limiting people to say, 50 e-mails a month. Who sends 50 e-mails a month? That’s 600 a year. It won’t affect anyone but spammers. Spam costs the economy billions of dollars a year. No compelling state interest in trying to stop that? We don’t accept those kinds of prior restraints on speech, why should we on firearms?

As for the assertion that it has lowered crime, I’m pretty sure he’s confusing that with a study done on ATF tracing data, using a subset of traced firearms in 1996 that appeared in the JAMA. The problem is, ATF has said again and again that its tracing data can’t be used to draw conclusions about crime guns. Therefore, these studies lack a real scientific rigor, because they don’t use a representative example of crime guns. It’s possible, though, that maybe legislators have some data that I don’t have.

Either way, if you look at cities who are in one-gun-a-month jurisdictions, like Baltimore, the crime rate is still atrocious — nearly double that of Philadelphia. Maryland and Virginia are still the largest source of crime guns for Washington DC, which bans all guns, despite the one-gun-a-month law present in both surrounding states. Even if one-gun-a-month has a temporary effect on crime, it would seem that the criminals have no trouble figuring out how to get around it.

So I still question why a law, even if it only affects gun owners at the margins, passes a strict scrutiny test when a) the criminal activity it’s meant to stop is already unlawful, and b) there are is a profound lack of good evidence it actually works.

I was mentioning the other day that we need to get ready for the meaningless individual rights arguments to start popping up. Here they come in Philly.

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee I received a lot of e-mails urging me to vote against the gun-control bills we considered last week. Many of these e-mails argued, in some form, that the governor’s proposals violated the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The writers seemed to feel that the Second Amendment prohibits any restrictions on gun ownership. However, that is simply not how the amendment works.

First off: good job Pennsylvania Gun Owners! He knows we’re watching. But while I agree the second amendment isn’t absolute, I worry when a politician starts down this road.

Last week we voted down two bills dealing with guns. The first would have required people to report the loss or theft of a gun they owned. The second would have limited to one a month the number of guns a person could purchase.

People can argue about the merits of these bills from a policy perspective, but there is clearly no constitutional impediment to either bill. The two rights spelled out in the Second Amendment do not bestow a constitutional “right” not to report a lost or stolen gun. Nothing in the wording of the amendment even arguably says that.

Really? So if I passed a law limiting the amount of ink people could buy with an aim to combat libel, that would be constitutionally permissible under the first amendment? Would limiting someone to a certain number of e-mails a month, with an aim to combat spam, be respectful of our right to free speech and free association?

All we insist on is that the second amendment be treated as seriously as other rights protected by the constitution. Daylin Leach is arguing for something less than “strict scrutiny”, because applied to your right to free speech, the laws I described above would be tossed.

Hat tip to Melody Zullinger, of PFSC for the heads up.

UPDATE: I just e-mailed Representative Leach.  We’ll see if he responds.  I would encourage everyone to do so as well, because it’s important that he hear from gun owners.  Be nice, be factual, and stick to the issues.

This study suggests that hunting with a shotgun isn’t really any safer than hunting with a rifle.  I’m not really surprised.  Fast moving rounds will tend to fragment more if they hit something, which would mean the pieces have less momentum, and won’t travel as far.

This article suggests Pennsylvania will yet again be a battleground state in 2008, because neither party can afford to ignore it.  The big problem Republicans are going to have with Pennsylvania in 2008 is that suburban Republican voters do not like George W. Bush’s brand of conservatism, and I have a feeling a lot of rural Republicans in our state aren’t too happy with him either.  Absent some big issue that will mobilize Republican voters, I don’t see Pennsylvania going red in 2008, but it could happen, and I agree that the possibility will keep the candidates fighting over our state.