Snowflakes in Hell

Toll roads apparently divert traffic and increase accidents.

The researchers analyzed decades of data from the Ohio Turnpike and nearby alternate routes in Ohio, comparing both to national data to determine the effects the toll rates had on nearby free roads. Ohio raised toll rates in the 1990s and subsequently lowered them, allowing an easier calculation of the effect of different rate levels. The study showed that as the Turnpike toll increased, truck traffic increased on alternate, free routes as truckers balanced the monetary savings with the cost of the extra time needed to take an indirect route.

I doubt Rendell will care.  The sections of Pennsylvania that I-80 goes through are the parts that didn’t vote for him.  If their costs go up, so what?  As long as everyone else can keep paying more for Philadelphia dysfunctional mass transit system, I’m sure that’s fine by him.

Ladies and Gentlemen; gun laws do not keep felons from committing crimes with guns, jail keeps felons from committing crimes with guns.

Tom King laments Albany DA David Soares who joined other district attorneys in filing a brief favoring Washington D.C.

Traction Control has a collection that is to be envied, as well as an FFL/Dealer inventory that must be seen to be believed.

Fred Thompson has accused the Bush Administration of “overlawyering” in the Department of Justice Brief.  I like this man so much, I fear there is no way he can possibly win.  There’s no surer way to  jinx a candidate than for me to like him.

… the people in Maryland who have unrestricted carry licenses.   Congratulations are in order to the other Sebastian for winning his fight.  Even in Philadelphia, he would have had an unrestricted license from the beginning.  If you’re thinking about urban renewal, it’s a good idea to try it in a state with shall-issue licensing.

Armed Canadian outlines the utter absurdity of some of our firearms laws, complete with pictures.  Can people seriously look us in the face and say this crap is reasonable?

Via Dave Hardy, the bill in Georgia for Parking lot carry has been largely gutted.  Concealed Weapons Permit holders will be pleased though, as it removes the ban in State Parks.  I still question whether the Parking Lot issue is worth spending all these political resources.  It may have passed in a few states, but I think it could be a real coalition splitter in many states.  Georgia would appear to be one of them.

Ahab explains why I don’t like Huckabee either, and can’t vote for him.  If Fred can’t pull a South Carolina win, I will start taking another look at McCain.  Not a perfect choice, but I can’t abide by this statement:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

Thomas Jefferson would be rolling over in his grave.  Christian political activists are beginning to become as big a force for reducing liberty as the left was in the 20th century, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people like to me to abide by being in coalition with them.  I agree with Ian Argent in the comments, who said:

I do believe, though, that we are on the cusp of a major realignment of the political parties - with parts of each coalition bolting their current party for the opposition. But it may take the Baby Boomers becoming inactive in politics first. And while they are, look out…

I think so too, but I think this realignment is going to be dangerous to gun owners.  People like me won’t be in a God and Guns coalition, but nor can I vote for elitist progressive weasels like this.  I suspect a number of other gun owners are in the same position.  Many of us are Christian, but we aren’t going to be happy with folks who want to monkey with the Republic because they think it doesn’t please God.  It’s not meant to please God, it’s meant to preserve liberty and limit government power.  It’s a good thing most of these people are OK with me keeping my guns, because if they get real power, I might need them.

Hillary is being all pussy cat with the gun issue, but beware:

And we need to enforce the laws that we have on the books. I would also work to reinstate the assault weapons ban. We now have, once again, police deaths going up around the country, and in large measure because bad guys now have assault weapons again. We stopped it for awhile. Now they’re back on the streets.

Of course that’s patently ridiculous to anyone who understands what the federal assault weapons law did and didn’t do, but she’s convinced that it worked, despite the fact that it banned nothing, and studies show it was useless.  Obama has decided to stake his flag on the Tiahrt Amendment:

I don’t think that we can get that done. But what I do think we can do is to provide just some common-sense enforcement. One good example — this is consistently blocked — the efforts by law enforcement to obtain the information required to trace back guns that have been used in crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers.That’s not something that the NRA has allowed to get through Congress. And, as president, I intend to make it happen.

Of course, he’s completely full of shit too.  Tiahrt doesn’t prevent law enforcement from tracing guns in criminal investigations.  It never has.  Breck Boy has stakes his flag pole on the assault weapons issue as well:

I don’t believe that means you need an AK-47 to hunt. And I think the assault weapons ban, which Hillary spoke about just a minute ago, as president of the United States I’ll do everything in my power to reinstate it. But I do think we need a president who understands the sportsmen, hunters who use their guns for lawful purposes have a right to have their Second Amendment rights looked after.

You don’t need any type of rifle to hunt, but Kalashnikovs get the job done effectively.  Given that the AR-15 is the most popular sporting rifle in the United States today, I don’t think John Edwards, despite him being from “the rural South” has any understanding of sportsmen at all.

Nonetheless, this is a very defensive stance, and has to frustrate the Brady Campaign to no end.  All candidates are willing to restore Brady’s recent lost ground, but that’s as far as they dare go.  We are winning folks, and we have to defeat these clowns in 2008 in order to keep winning.

Gun owners in New York appear to be in for some of the same types of crap that California gun owners recently got stuck with.   The lead ammo issue is one the anti-gun people, with the exception of the VPC, have been reluctant to go after for some time.  It’s hard to argue that you support people owning firearms for hunting and “sporting purposes” when you’re simultaneously calling for a ban on lead ammunition.

The culture in California and a few other states have gotten to the point where a confluence of anti-gun, anti-hunting, and environmentalist concerns have merged to make pursuing the lead issue politically feasible.  Of little concern to most of these groups is the fact that the shooting community has been aware of the lead issue for years, and have been actively taking steps to deal with the problem.  It was the shooting community that worked with the EPA very closely on a paper regarding best practices for managing lead at shooting ranges.

This should be a major wakeup call to hunters.  Unlike sport shooters, who use ranges where lead management practices can be put into place, hunters are easily painted as environmental menaces, who are poisoning fragile ecosystems by their wanton discharging of highly toxic lead into the environment.  The lead ammunition hunters use was an easy target when California Condors started showing up with lead poisoning.

We have to keep on top of the lead issue, because it’s very difficult to make high performance ammunition out of other metals, and federal law on armor piercing ammunition actually interferes with that in many cases.

Hillary, going up against… nobody… was only able to garner about 60% of the vote.  That means 35% of the votes would rather have anybody but Hillary.  I don’t think this speaks well for her.  If I were her campaign, I wouldn’t be too happy about this, and wouldn’t get too cocky.