Snowflakes in Hell

Countertop explains a little history behind the Sturm in Sturm and Ruger.  Interesting.

Reports GunPundit.  Throwing rocks is deadly force, depending on the size of the rock.  I agree with Murdoc:

Murdoc’s weapon of choice to “fend off attackers” at the national border would not leave a “small welt.” But I still don’t think the “human rights activists” would like it.

The use of pepperballs probably makes more sense than paintballs either way.

… that sold a car to a drunk driver that killed a loved one in an alcohol related fatality?  I wouldn’t.  I don’t see why Eric Thompson doesn’t deserve the same consideration.

UPDATE: Also note that the VPC study Bryan links to reports gun deaths, not gun homicides as Bryan claims.  There’s a difference between the two.  Gun deaths include suicides.  I do believe that lower levels of gun ownership tends to reduce the incidents of gun homicides, much like I believe that the lack of tall buildings in Boise probably translates into it having a lower per-capita suicide rate by jumping than, say, New York City or San Francisco.

The Weekly Standard thinks Hillary may have provided John McCain the key to defeating Obama:

In a new Brookings study of Pennsylvania’s political demographics, William Frey and Ruy Teixeira identify this region, centered on Allentown, as key to the state’s political future. If Pennsylvania’s Northeast keeps trending Democratic, the state will become solidly blue. But if a Republican candidate can hold the line or make some modest gains with the region’s white working class voters, the picture looks very different. And as it turns out, the GOP may have a candidate who can do just that in John McCain. As Hillary Clinton’s campaign slow-marches to its unhappy end, she is offering lessons not only for how McCain can defeat Obama–she is pointing towards a possible bright future for the Republican brand.

The Republicans have lost a lot in Pennsylvania, largely due to the Bush version of Republicanism alienating the traditionally Republican Philadelphia suburbs, and making those voters look elsewhere.  That’s probably one reason I’m more sanguine about John McCain than most, is because I think the Republicans desperately need to make some gains in Pennsylvania, and McCain is probably the right kind of guy to appeal to voters in these key areas in the southeast.  It’s not so much that I love the Republican Party, and want it to dominate, but I sit just across the river from a shining example of what one party rule does to a state.  If Pennsylvania shifts solidly Democrat, if Ed Rendell is any indication of what is in long term store for us, we’re in a lot of trouble.  Taxes will keep going up and up, people will keep leaving, and  you can probably kiss Pennsylvania goodbye as a pro-gun state in a generation.  If it takes McCain coattails to reverse that trend, so be it.

HatTip to Instapundit

UPDATE: Check out this graphic in the Inquirer that shows how Obama failed.  It also shows that Ed Rendell had to carry near universal support in the Philadelphia area in order to win.  Obama failed to not only carry overwhelming support in the southeast, he failed to beat Hillary.

Crap!  I will try to get to the range tonight to shoot this match, but it’s been a rough month for finding shooty time, aside from my regularly scheduled matches.  For one, I only spent the first weekend of the month at home.  Every other weekend I’ve been in Virginia.   This weekend we took some new shooters out to the NRA range in Fairfax.  The good news is, for the month of May, I’ll pretty much be home, except for the Louisville weekend.

The hearing on the Philadelphia gun control ordinances, originally scheduled for April 28th (today), has been rescheduled for May 19th, when we’ll all be in Louisville.  Apparently the city is trying to make a standing argument.

At an April 17 hearing at which Greenspan granted an order temporarily blocking enforcement of the gun-control laws, the judge said she had misgivings about the organizations’ standing to sue. Generally, organizations cannot file a constitutional challenge without showing how their members are directly harmed by the law in question.

I’m an NRA member.  I have firearms that are illegal under this law that I often transport through the City of Philadelphia.  I am affected.  I know other people who live in the city who will be affected, and are NRA members.  NRA has standing.  Why isn’t that obvious?  Or is it, and they just want NRA off the suit, and are looking for an excuse?

I have to agree with Breda on this one.

Remember on Friday that the Brady Campaign cited a study which I derided as a workplace version of the “43 times more likely” Kellermann study.  Firearms and Freedom has a more detailed post that hits on why the study is bogus.  Pretty much, the study starts off biasing itself by selecting workplaces that have already had a violence incident as its case study.

Mike Adams details some anger issues with an anti-gun professor at the open holster protest at UNC Wilmington.

From Barack Obama, on what he thinks about DC’s gun ban:

I don’t like taking a stand on pending cases.

Translation: “I agree with the law, but I have to win Indiana or I might be screwed when it comes to wooing superdelegates.”  I don’t know why he’s so worried when he has AHSA’s endorsement.

The Tribune once again notes that gun control advocates are remarkably silent.  That’s because gun control activists are remarkably few, especially once you get outside of Chicago and New York City metro areas.

Someone started a petition to Impeach the Mayor of Philadelphia for passing the gun control ordinances.  I fully agree with the sentiment here, but since City Council is the body to carry out the proceedings, and they are complicit in passing the bill, I doubt this is going to go anywhere.  Also, I would advise anyone starting a petition to make sure they are using the proper spelling of the words “advice” and “break.”   I normally hate to be the spell check guy, but it kind of stood out.

It’s a sign of the time I suppose, from a CMP email:

AMMUNITION PURCHASE LIMIT: During the past 60 days we have experienced a ten-fold increase in orders for HXP .30-06 ammunition. This activity has significantly reduced our inventory. To ensure that the current inventory last another few years, effective immediately we are establishing an individual maximum purchase limit of ten cases of .30-06 HXP item # 407-Case and 10 cases of item # 415 per year.

NEW HXP .30-06 AMMUNITION PRICES:  New prices are: Item #407-Case - $238 per case; item #407-Can - $60 per can; item #415 - $134 per case; item #415-CN $67 per can. New prices are effective 5 May, 2008. CMP will honor the old price for all orders already received, but not yet processed.

It’s disappointing, but I’m not sure there’s going to be any more cheap .30-06 once the HXP runs out.  One thing I think gun owners need to work on changing is the prohibition on the US military selling surplus ammo to civilians.  While that won’t help the .30-06 situation any, it might help reduce prices for more modern military calibers.  Cutting off military surplus ammo is also one of the chief dangers of international arms control.  HXP is of Greek manufacture.  Imagine a world where no one can sell anything to civilians.  Think about how many of your favorite guns are foreign made, and you see how this becomes a big problem.

There’s been a lot of talk on the blogosphere this weekend about Mayor Daley of Chicago outfitting police with M4s.  While I’m a proponent of a well-armed police force, I will suggest that rifles capable of fully automatic fire have no place in police work.  That’s not to say I have a problem with police having AR-15s, and I do believe that the submachine gun has a role to play in tactical units, but issuing military M4s to patrol officers is probably a foolhardy publicity stunt on the part of the mayor.

The only real purpose for automatic weapons is to suppress enemy fire, to allow members of a squad to advance, or to defend against a human wave attack, where there’s a need to take down multiple targets on a battlefield.  In police work the object should be well aimed fire, and for that semi-automatic AR-15s should be sufficient for that purpose.

Feel free to disagree with me in the comments, but I’d hate to think what would happen the first time an officer flips off the safety a bit too energetically.  I also tend to think what’s prohibited to civilians, because it’s a “military weapon of war,” ought to also be prohibited to police forces.   If the police need it and can use the firearm for self-defense, so can I.  If I can’t have it, because it’s not useful for self-defense, then it’s not useful for police self-defense either, right?

This brings me to a thought I’ve had since oral arguments in Heller.  Would a good test for the second amendment be any arm that’s in common police use is protected?  Keep in mind that the courts, according to every export on this subject that I’ve ever talked to, are going to be completely unwilling to rule that the second amendment is without limit, and are absolutely not going to be willing to rule that it protects explosive ordnance, such as rocket launchers, and anti-tank weapons.  A common police use standard, I think, would probably be pretty reasonable.  What do you think?

I read this paper that Dave Hardy linked to.  I agree with Dave that it’s a very good read, in the sense that they outline a lot of the racial overtones that have been part of the history of gun regulation and the gun culture.  But I can’t agree with the conclusion, which is that the courts and legislatures should defer greatly to local concerns about restrictiong weapons in urban environments in response to the overwheliming problem of black-on-black violence.

It’s either an individual right, or it isn’t.  If it is, we don’t restrict that right in local jurisdictions because inner city communities can’t control their own problems with gangs and violence.  Urban blacks, who are not criminals, and who live in these communities that are affected by violence, have every bit as much right to have a firearm to protect themselves from criminals as I do.  In fact, their need is more dire than mine.  Even if 70% of blacks in inner cities would like to see guns banned, the nature of a right is that the 70% does not have the power to tell the othe 30% they may not have the means to protect themselves.

Maybe it is because I was born after the Civil Rights Movement, it’s difficult for me to view the modern gun rights movement in any way related to the antebellum “gun rights” movement in the south, the racist Jim Crow laws, or the 1967 California law, that pretty clearly had racial motivations.  Ultimately, I find the conclusion offered in this paper no better than others that prescribe magic pills, because I think they misunderstand the most important cultural issue that the gun debate is a metaphor for, which is the individual vs. the collective society.

The gun rights proponent ultimately views that his individual right to protect home and hearth trumps any community illusion that security is a collective rather than individual function.  At this point in our history, I think it’s time to put these racially tinged debates behind us and get to the root of the issue, which is that every human being has the right to defend home and hearth, regardless of the desires of the political elites to collectivise security.  Certainly there’s been enough of that on all sides of the racial debate at this point.

Boomershoot looks to be a snowy event this year, despite Al Gore.  I’m glad to hear that they are blowing up a low flush toilet in honor of Dave Barry.  Hail Joe, we who are about to poop salute you!

I might actually be able to say I agree with The Brady Campaign that the parking lot laws that are being passed in various states are wrong, but this is just so much PSH that it almost makes me want to support them.

A May 2005 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that workplaces where guns were permitted were 5 to 7 times more likely to be the site of a workplace homicide compared to workplaces where guns were prohibited.

Reading over the study, it suffers from many of the same flaws the infamous Kellerman study it cites suffers from, namely it allows the reader to jump to a conclusion that because workplace homicide correlates with gun policy, that it must be gun policy that causes workplace homicide.  If allowing concealed weapons license holders to carry at work caused homicide in the workplace, then the Brady’s would have us believe that this demographic, which has shown itself to be exceptionally law abiding everywhere else, will suddenly start murdering people when it comes to workplace disagreements.

The study also doesn’t pass the smell test, in that it seems rather absurd to believe that a workplace policy on guns would actually prevent someone intent on mowing down his coworkers.  Do derranged and disgruntled sociopaths wake up in the morning, load up the AK-47, and then think “Oh, but damn, the employee handbook says I can’t.”  I don’t think even the Brady’s are warped enough to believe that.

The fundamental problem is our definition of reasonableness.  Mine differs greatly from Walter M. Phillips Jr.:

My suggestion would be to introduce a bill requiring both a license and a detailed background investigation before allowing someone to possess or own a handgun.

Currently, there is no requirement in Pennsylvania to obtain a license in order to own a handgun.

That’s correct, because we don’t license fundamental rights.  A background check is already required, and a few minute check on a computer is all it takes; criminal records are computerized.

The current meaningless background check in Pennsylvania, along with the state’s no-license requirement, allows unsavory characters to buy handguns and later sell them on the streets - not just in Philadelphia, but in Reading, York, Scranton, and neighboring states that have more restrictive laws. Ultimately, individuals use them to commit crimes and kill innocent people.

By unsavory character, you mean people who have no criminal record in the State Police’s database, and in the National Crime Information Computer?  Because that’s the background check that’s going to be done for the license too.  The state uses the same system to run Licenses to Carry.  It’s a thorough check.

Someone who has been arrested for multiple robberies, but convicted of none (witnesses might have not shown up, changed their testimony, or been murdered), is not someone who should be allowed to buy one handgun, let alone the 10 he may seek to buy (since there is no one-gun-a-month law in Pennsylvania); neither should the individual who is under investigation by the attorney general for major drug deals (but who never has been convicted of a felony).

We do not deny fundamental rights in this country without due process.  Eliminating due process of a fundmental right is under no one’s definition “reasonable”.

To my knowledge, the NRA has not had its members march on state capitols protesting the passage of license- or detailed-background requirement laws, nor has the NRA brought a court action to declare such laws as violating the Second Amendment. In other words, the NRA seems to have slowly come to the realization that these laws are reasonable.

What crack pipe are you hitting pal?  Try to pass this crap, and you can bet your rosey red buttcheeks that we’re going to march on Harrisburg.

It can hardly be argued that requiring a license to own a handgun is unreasonable or burdensome. After all, a license is required to drive an automobile. Is not a handgun a far more dangerous instrument than an automobile?

Driving an automobile on public roads is not a right.  Keeping a firearm is a right.  And you don’t need a license to buy a car, just to drive one on the public highways.

I think it’s high time we wrote our legislators, and found out exactly what the PCCD is doing with out tax dollars.  I do not take kindly to government appointees advocating positions that are contrary to the constitution and laws of this commonwealth.

I’m late linking to this post by Dr. Helen, since I tend to keep things open in tabs that I mean to blog about, and sometimes I don’t.  But I wanted to get back to this one:

I think the point about gun owners being less outraged than non gun owners is an important one. If you listen to many people who are adamant gun control supporters, they often (mistakenly) believe that people simply shoot others because they are impulsive and angry, and a gun is nearby. My guess is that this is projection. This is what they feel they would do because they do not know how to modulate their own anger. They do not trust their own instincts (maybe with good reason!) and project their anger and inability to control themselves onto others.

A question in my mind is whether these people avoid weapons specifically because they consciously believe they could not handle them?  Or do their anger issues unconsciously create an aversion toward weapons?  Its difficult for me to understand the mindset.  Why don’t such angry people fear people with baseballs bats, kitchen knives, or golf clubs?  All are pretty deadly weapons in the hands of someone who can’t control their anger.  The other curious thing is whether these people, given access to firearms, would actually fly off the handle and kill someone.  I suspect they probably would not.  I’d imagine these people are probably more frightened of their own temper than anything, which is difficult to understand given that to not be in jail, that person would have had to exercise a considerable degree of self-control if they did have a temper.

David has uncovered some useful information about our friends at AHSA.  Bitter actually has a lot of expeirence professionally in this area of non-profit, so we’ll have to dig too.  Typically, it’s not unusual for a group like AHSA, which I’m guessing is organized as a 501(c)(4), to have a 501(c)(3) foundation to cover activities which 501(c)(3)s can do.  NRA also does this.

A (c)(3) can advocate for a political position, such as gun control, but it’s more limited in terms of lobbying for legislation.  Generally only about 15% of its activities can be used for this purpose.  However, a (c)(3) can’t make an endorsement.  I suspect what’s happening is that AHSA is not receiving more than $25k annually for its 501(c)(4) because it has no members, and its donors are giving to the foundation, which is tax deductible, and can fund most of the activities that AHSA is undertaking.  Their web site, newsletters, etc, so long as they don’t mention candidates or legislation, can be funded through the (c)(3).  Any activity associated with, say, endorsing Barack Obama would have to be funded by the (c)(4), though I doubt AHSA actually put anything other than a press release into that endorsement.

That’s not to say these boundaries don’t often get crossed in non-profit, so it’s important to keep an eye on our opponents.  The penalty for making a mistake here can include losing your status as a non-profit.

Read this, and take notes.

Odd choice of language USA Today uses for this article.

South Carolina last week became the latest in a growing number of states to make the names of people who have a license to carry a concealed weapon a state secret.

Five other states might not be far behind in a battle that pits a public policy of open government against the right of people to keep their gun ownership records private.

A few choices phrases from our friends at the Brady Campaign:

Weaver, of the Brady Campaign, said there’s no evidence to show that open records put people who carry concealed weapons in greater danger.

“We feel that the greater danger is putting concealed-weapons permits in the hands of convicted felons and people that should not be allowed to have them,” he said.

One wonders whether Colin Weaver would feel similarly to have his wife’s jewelry collection published in the local paper.  Look, guns are valuables, and you would think the Brady Campaign would support these laws, which deny firearms traffickers a convenient list of which houses have firearms.  More particularly, a license holder house is more likely to have a handgun, which are most in demand on the streets.

The “felon” issue is completely laughable anyway.  Can the Brady Campaign name a single instance of the public availability of permit records being a factor in a getting a permit that was misissued recinded in a shall-issue state?   I know that happens in may-issue jurisdictions like New York City, where the criteria for being issued is basically whether the police feel like it, but in shall issue states, where everyone goes through the background check, I’ve never heard of it happening.

Looks like there’s a movement to spread open carry in Delaware.  Looking over the site, it would appear people are successfully doing it.  A few years ago, before Delaware passed reciprocity, I had looked into whether you could get away with this, and conventional wisdom was you probably could in Kent (excepting Dover) and Sussex County, but were probably going to get nailed for disorderly if you did it in New Castle County.  I never tried it.  I’m glad to see that people are proving it can be done.

Now I carry in Delaware on my Florida license concealed, so it’s a bit of a moot point to me at this point.  I support the open carry movement, but I do not open carry myself.

I am not a fan of most things Disney, but I don’t hate Disney this much:

Done by RedneckInNY with a bow at 20 yards.  Much better than I could ever do with a bow!  I’d be lucky to hit the wall.

Robb’s new toy came in.  I hope his shoots as well as mine does.  Shooting 6.8 will definitely keep you busy at the reloading press!  Robb’s picture here is sure to make a lot of gun control type people wet their pants.