Snowflakes in Hell

Here we go again:

[I asked the] Sheriff why was my license to Cary denied? He stated someone came in two days before I applied on 11/16/07 and asked If I had a license to Cary. he said he looked in the computer and told them no there is no one in here by that name. He said he asked this person why he said this person told him he observed me with a gun in my waist band on my property. I said Yes Sheriff I do Cary my gun in a holster on my property and not in my waist band. I also stated that its not against the law To OC In PA he agreed. I then asked why was my permit being denied. He then said “I called the Clifford police as part of my investigation and they said yes they had a report of me walking around with my side arm. never once has the police been to my house never once have I been in trouble with the law! I said this is why you denied me he said yes he said it shows lack of character and thats the grounds hes denying me on. I told him I was going to appeal he then said I guess I was right in denying you then You are arguing with me. I said I’m stating facts and laws I’m not arguing with you and mean no disrespect. He said stay out of trouble and reapply in a year until then get yourself some pepper spray. WTF

I am so mad what can I do?

My advice is to retain an attorney and appeal the denial. Meanwhile, I’m going to continue to advocate for altering or abolishing § 6109 (e) (1) (i) “An individual whose character and reputation is such that the individual would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety.” so that this discretion clause, that more than a few Sheriffs appear to not be able to use without abusing, doesn’t stop law abiding gun owners from getting licenses.

Besides, if you’re a sheriff, and you don’t like open carry, shouldn’t you want to give the guy a license to he can carry concealed.

Ian has some interesting thoughts on the DOJ brief.

In particular, the standard arm of the US military is considered a machinegun by law (M-16, as it can fire more than one bullet per trigger press). But because it is a machinegun, it can be banned for public safety reasons under the federal government’s ability to regulate, for the purposes of ensure a well-regulated militia, what arms the People can Keep and Bear… One more time: The government may ban the civilian possession of the standard arm of the military under its ability to sure that the militia is effective. IE - to ensure the militia is effective (well-regulated) the government may ban arms demonstrably suitable for the individual soldier.

Yeah, pretty much. I guess they figure we’d be a little too well-regulated with M16s. I found an interesting and provocative bit of commentary over on The High Road too:

This kind of DOJ brief was one of those risks. It’s not surprising to me that the brief introduces governmental concerns about machine guns. How could it be a surprise to anyone else either? This forum and other gun forums are filled with irresponsible declarations that once this case is won there will be attempts to strike down restrictions on machine guns. You want to be heard. You have been heard. When gun owners insist upon raising red flags and press hot button issues, they need to recognize that they will set off explosions. They always make those explosions someone else’s fault. This one isn’t anyone else’s fault. It’s an obvious response to the red flag that gun owners have insisted upon raising most unwisely.

I can see the author’s point, but I doubt the Solicitor General or Supreme Court justices are much reading The High Road, or any of our blogs. Heller most definitely won’t be on the issue of machine guns, and whether it will lay the groundwork for a getting rid of the ban is unknowable at this point. What disappointed me was that the brief raised that issue, but I suspect the reason is because the federal bureaucracy gets a lot of mileage out of enforcing those laws, rather than The Administration noticing that gun owners have been raising the issue.

Nonetheless, we must tread lightly on the machine gun issue while this case is before The Court.  We really would rather the court not consider that right now, and the less they say in the ruling, even if it’s dicta, the better we’re all going to be.

I’m not entirely sure who David is saying might have wanted the DOJ Brief to come out the way it did, but having talked to several people who are running themselves ragged working on this case, I want to make my views on this clear.

No one I have talked to or heard about, that was wary about the Parker case initially, was opposed to it for any reason than they thought it was going to lose if it hit the Supreme Court.  A lot has changed since 2003, when the case was initially filed, and many of the folks who were initially wary are working very hard on making sure the case comes out in favor of Heller, and we get a strong individual rights ruling from The Court.  That includes council that’s working for the National Rifle Association.  The initial conflagration has been put aside, because the important thing now is for the case to come out on terms that doesn’t gut the second amendment.

Fred Thompson is surging ahead in South Carolina.   From the campaign:

Fred’s South Carolina surge is working!

Two new polls by Zogby and Rasmussen, conducted just this week, show support for Fred growing. Thousands of internal calls by the campaign show Fred’s strength increasing.

It’s Day 10 of Fred’s South Carolina bus tour, and Fred is on fire!

I certainly hope Fred can pull ahead.   Winning South Carolina will be critical for his campaign.

… to do something about nail gun violence?

UPDATE: Who will stop the carnage?

Simon Asks:

If they wanted to reduce gun deaths why not eliminate Drug Prohibition? The elephant in the closet.

It worked for alcohol prohibition.

I note it is never mentioned by pro gun folks either.

I’m pretty sure if you did a poll of gun bloggers you’d find most of them would admit that the War on Drugs is an abject failure and maybe we should rethink it.  The problem is, there’s virtually no political support for this position.  I think the reason for this is that parents envision drug decriminalization as making it easier to sell drugs to their kids, or making it more likely their kids will do drugs.

If decriminalization does happen, it won’t happen fast, and there probably won’t ever be political support for legalizing, say, heroin.  But we do indeed pay a high price in terms of cost and liberty trying unsuccessfully to keep drugs out of this country, and our inner cities pay most of the cost of the violent black market that results from prohibition.

I actually do tend to use the drug war’s abject failures with people who argue that despite that, we can be successful at keeping guns out of the country.

Looks like there’s at least some support for removing carry restrictions.  I’d really like to see the public park and national forest restrictions go away too.  Those are the bills that keep me from ever going back woods camping in Tennessee.

A lot of states seem to get nervous about lifting restrictions like this, but Pennsylvania does not restrict carry in establishments licensed to server alcohol.  Hell, we don’t even have a drinking while carrying restriction in Pennsylvania.   I don’t think it’s been a problem here, since most people who carry regularly are responsible enough not to run around carrying a firearm drunk.  You’d probably lose your license for that anyway.

Scroll down to “What does L.A. mean to Lindsay” and read.  She’s from Texas, is liberal/progressive, and moved to LA to live in a blue state:

Funny thing is, I think I sort of, well, in some ways, prefer living in a Red State.

Because if I have to hear one more piece of coastal Blue State snobbery, I think I will scream. I try to explain to folks here that in Texas cities we don’t shoot each other anymore than people do in LA, that we are actually sort of nice to each other every once in a while, and we also like going to sunny places with good beaches and good food.

Come to Pennsylvania Lindsay.  We’re a blue state without all the attitude.  But yeah, the weather kind of sucks.