Snowflakes in Hell

Apparently soon (but not soon enough) to be former Mayor of Philadelphia, John Street, is going to be teaching a course on urban politics at Temple University. Wyatt has some pretty amusing thoughts on what the topics of his classes might be.

Sailorcurt does some more analysis of the election results in Virginia, which I talked about earlier here.

The Brady campaign seems to have a tendency to stick with “safe” endorsements. They don’t expect their endorsement to actually gain any votes for the candidates (except in certain, very specific areas) so they only make endorsements in races where they have a reasonable expectation to win.

Even with that, they don’t have a great success rate and they lost both of the races that were being touted by all involved as being “referendums on gun control”…Devolites-Davis lost her District 34 senate seat and Cuccinelli held onto his (by the skin of his teeth) in district 37.

Yep.  And they are telling people it’s a win.

The strange thing is that the NRA seems to have the same tendency as the Brady Campaign. The NRA absolutely CAN have an impact on the election results but in many cases they seem to worry more about getting the “W” than supporting the superior candidates.

For example: In Senate district 14, the NRA supported “B” rated Henry Blevins against extremely Pro-gun (and VCDL endorsed) libertarian candidate Donald Tabor. There was no anti-gun candidate in the race so there was no danger of splitting the pro-gun vote…so why not support the superior candidate? Unless, of course, the “W” is more important than upholding principles.

Not all that strange.  Most groups that issue endorsements will endorse as many safe, friendly seats as they can in order to inflate the value of their endorsements.  I called out Brady mostly because they lost in the ones where they really took chances, and then touted it as a victory.

The main reason NRA won’t endorse Libertarian candidates is because Libertarians don’t win.  If you endorse the Libertarian, the Republican who didn’t get your endorsement is going to be pissed at you, and might decide his B grade isn’t worth keeping.

Read Sailorcurt’s whole post.  It’s a good analysis of the election.  I’ve also written in the past about the Grading/Endorsement system, and how it’s more politics than principle.

Armed Canadian asks that question: What if we lose at the Supreme Court?   I think he’s more optimistic than I am.  While I agree that in the short term, it would be a huge boost to the gun rights movement, I would note that after the Kelo decision, there was a persistent outcry from quite a lot of directions, but to date I’ve seen very little movement on eminent domain reform.  People have gotten tired and moved on.

A defeat at the Supreme Court will hurt us very much over the long term, because the anti-gun groups will be able to say “The second amendment doesn’t mean anything,” and for all practical purposes, they’d be right.

Dave Hardy dug up an unpublished decision from the 6th circuit that you all need to read to believe.

The court essentially rules that since the State Guard can be armed by the State when activated, and the governor *probably* would do that, ownership of the guns was not reasonably related to its purposes. Nevermind the question of training before being activated, or that the governor might find it convenient for the units to have their own equipment.

So if this is the case, then the court is basically saying the Second Amendment has no meaning whatsoever.  This isn’t collective rights, this is no rights.

Via Instapundit, Danny Glover goes over Karl Rove’s statements on blogs:

“People on the fringe are no longer voiceless,” noted Rove. Blogs have the unintended effect of giving “angry kooks” an “inexpensive soapbox” and a sense of “pseudo-anonymity” that “brings forth the worst angels of our nature.” He trashed Daily Kos and the liberal blogosphere for using more “dirty words” than conservative blogs like Townhall and RedState.”The netroots, he said, “argue from anger rather than reason.” Many, he believes, blog for “personal release” and not “political persuasion.” He argued that the netroots have been largely ineffective and said MoveOn.org’s inability to end the war proves his point.

It’s true that blogging gives voice to the angry and disaffected, but I agree with Danny Glover that “like too much of official Washington, still doesn’t appreciate the medium”.   Rove also stated:

“Every word, public utterance, and public appearance can be captured and put on the web. “If you don’t believe me, just ask Senator James Webb or former Senator George Allen.”

I don’t think this is a bad thing.  While new media does offer the possibility of damaging a candidate, like it did with George “Macaca” Allen, it also offers the possibility for candidates to talk to readers in an entirely different way then they do now.  That we’ve yet to have a candidate that really gets new media, and knows how to use it to effect, doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer them.

With Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid’s sons in jail, and with media folks of all stripes throwing him a giant pity party, Kansas City Star and Fox Sports commentator Jason Whitlock hits the nail on the head with this column that eviscerates Reid & his wife, the “drug emporium” that became of their house, the sports media, and the War on Drugs.

America’s morally bankrupt war on drugs, a cause that has killed and destroyed more lives than Vietnam and Iraq combined, has finally put Andy Reid’s kids on the front lines (incarceration), and Andy Reid doesn’t have a damn meaningful thing to say about it.

That’s unacceptable. It’s cowardly.

Andy Reid knows my pain, and he’s too worried about a freaking football game to verbalize it. He could make Middle America and the power structure understand the helplessness and the pain you feel when people you love get caught up in America’s political ploy called a “war on drugs.”

Echoing Whitlock’s sentiment, is a piece in the Ed/Op section of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer by Douglas Marlowe.

For too long in this country, the approach toward substance-abusing offenders wavered between incarceration without treatment and treatment without supervision - one or the other, rarely both. The incarceration-without-treatment approach is an outgrowth of our “war on drugs,” a nationwide response to the scourge of drug addiction that failed miserably on a number of levels, not the least of which being the flawed assumption that jails are an effective response to the problem of drug-related crime.

Marlowe applauds the judges use of the combination of treatment and monitoring with small jail sentences. It’s time for Andy Reid to step up, do the same, and insist that it the norm for everyone, not just for the affluent.

But, oh yeah, he’s got a game to prepare for.

If you’re into collecting and shooting firearms, it’s a very good idea to not also be into drugs. That link is to an article and video of another “arsenal” seizure in Upper Darby, just outside of Philadelphia. If it wasn’t for the drugs and explosives, the news media wouldn’t have gotten their “Look! Dangerous gun owners!” story. It’s quite possible the drugs were the guy’s tenant, but that’s immaterial if he had functioning explosive devices.

I am disturbed by two things here. One is that apparently being denied entry into the home was grounds for a warrant? I mean, clearly he had something to hide right? So much for the fourth amendment.

The other thing is that he’s being charged under Title 18 § 2716 “Weapons of mass destruction” of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statues. This is a poor drafted law for a number of reasons, first is that it defines biological agent as:

“Biological agent.” A natural or genetically engineered pathogen, toxin, virus, bacteria, prion, fungus or microorganism which causes infections, disease or bodily harm.

Technically it would be illegal to culture strep or staph under this law, which is something labs do all the time. Home brewers can also end up doing it on slants used for culturing brewer’s yeast.

“Nuclear agent.” A radioactive material.

My smoke detector is a weapon of mass destruction under this definition. But I suspect this fellow falls under this definition:

“Bomb.” An explosive device used for unlawful purposes.

If I were this guy, I’d get a good attorney. This is bad law, and I’d like to see it modified. Even though I think the state can make it illegal to house explosives in a residential area, this was a case of the police finding the guy’s guns, and looking for any excuse to charge him with something, because clearly he was a menace to society, or something.

Uncle taunts the Brady Campaign with some electoral facts. Brady is boasting bout 19 out out of 21 candidates in the Virginia House of Delegates winning. It’s easy to increase your electoral success rate if you never take any chances. What they don’t say is that NRA endorsed candidates in The Virginia House won 57 out of 62 seats and in the Senate won 23 out of 27 seats, including the upset of Devolites Davis, and a hearty “screw you” to Bloomberg.

Let’s see… that puts NRA’s winning percentage at 90% in Virgina. Tell me who’s victory this was again? In both raw numbers and in percentage, it looks to me like NRA came out ahead.

I have to hand it to Peter Hamm, he’s good at making an electoral defeat look like a victory.

Ahab is building a PDW based on the 10/22 platform.  I like the .17HM2, personally.  I had some silhouette shooters tell me they like the high-velocity rimfires because they are flatter shooting than .22LR.

If there’s one thing that really does annoy me in local elections, and Democrats have been particularly guilty of this, is running against the leaders in the national government.  Eric has a prime example of this.

Note to Democrats: If you tell me that I should vote for your local worms because it will make George W. Bush cry, I will vote for the other guy.  Well, unless the other guy thinks Pennsylvania is Utah.  The Republicans managed to retain control of Montgomery County. Maybe that’s because the residents of Montgomery County are more interested in hearing how candidates would run county government,  and didn’t buy this juvinile attempt to make people think that a vote for their guy is a great way to stick it to George W. Bush.

It’s a funny title to an odd blog post. I know a lot of gun owners who are annoyed by the NRA, but not for the reasons Paul would think. I’ve been observing for a while now the Brady’s are starting to understand more of our fault lines in their attempts to divide and conquer. Paul’s latest article would attest to that.

Richard Feldman and Jim Zumbo should start a club.

They could call it, “Gun Owners Who Annoy The NRA.”

Except that the whole Jim Zumbo thing was over before NRA really knew what was going on. That was grassroots that did that, not NRA. I’m reminded of the quote from Tam. [UPDATE: More from Ahab here]

I don’t consider the Brady Campaign to be one of the groups described [that would ban guns] in that last comment, but I would like to find common ground with the NRA on ways to make our communities safer. I’m not sure they’re interested in such an approach, however.

How about this, Paul. Since your organization isn’t about banning guns, why don’t you join us in getting rid of the ban on firearms in Washington DC? It certainly doesn’t seem to be making Washington DC any safer, except for the criminals. No one is going to take the Brady Campaign seriously about not banning guns as long as they continue to defend…. gun bans. Get it? It’s pretty simple.