Snowflakes in Hell

According to Armed and Safe, the bill has gone down in flames.  Demographically, with Chicago and surrounds as big as it is, it’s a testament to gun owners in Illinois that they’ve been defeating the anti-gun agenda as effectively as they have been.  Chicago is one of the few centers of gun hatred in this country, so this is no small accomplishment.

UPDATE: Looks like the magazine ban might fail too.

I have never had a more acute need for closets that use TARDIS technology than I will by the end of this next week.  Consider this from Bitter:

Tomorrow the goal is the bathroom and my bedroom.  It may sound easy, but you guys have no idea about my bedroom which has three closets.  That’s going to kick my butt tomorrow.

I have thrown out two large contractor bags full of clothing.  I figured it’s high time to accept that I’m not fitting into the clothes I used to wear right out of college.  That should make a decent amount of room to accommodate Bitter’s stuff.  But also consider this:

On Monday, I drive back to Philly, probably with Christmas decorations in the back.

I don’t know what it is with chicks and Christmas decorations, but every chick I know, even ones that live on their own, have at least a tub’s worth of Christmas decorations.  And that’s not even counting the shoes.  Where are we going to put all the shoes?  This is where the Time Lord technology comes in.  I need some place where we can fit everything, and still have a reasonable living space that looks nice.   This is about the time I seriously regret not buying a house with more storage.

You’d definitely see a picture of these two guys.  I have to agree with Dave.  I’m not counting on anyone’s lack of shooting ability to save me more than enough time to return fire.

Looks like a town in California is proposing to ban smoking anywhere in public.  I think it’s it’s unreasonable to speculate how soon it will be before gangs are shooting it out in the streets to protect their tobacco turf.  You have to figure the next step after that is just banning it altogether.  It’s for the lungs of the children, you know.

Another Gun Blog talks about his sister’s high school civics class:

Apparently they (very briefly) studied the 15th, 19th, and 26th (voting rights) amendments and a handful of others but didn’t even focus on the 1st ten in the BOR. She had no idea what the 3rd, 9th, or 10th were (although most schools generally ignore those as much as they do the 2nd)

Of course they would cover the voting rights amendments.  Today we worship the Goddess of Democracy.  Rights?   Liberty?  Freedom?   Bah!  Outdated concepts from a bunch of guys that have been dead for 200 years.  The elite have rejected repulican values and republican thought.  Today we will worship, and pray to the Goddess that two wolves and a sheep get to decide what’s for dinner.

I have to admit, so far the Brady Campaign’s Newswatch is top quality stuff. Worthy of Jadegold, except without the ad-hominems.  I mean, arguing that Montanans are crazy for taking the constitution seriously, and that NRA members are afraid of cows.  Wow.  I look forward to the day when I can be part of this parody.

Just to let you all in on what the Brady’s are likely hoping for here, is that we all link to these outrages, and that it boosts their Google mojo.  That way when people search on certain things, their message gets out there, and maybe they get some followers.  I wonder where they got that idea from?

But seriously folks, the Brady’s are a lot of things, but they aren’t stupid.  They are clearly starting to understand new media, and we have to be ready.  Be so baited as you might be, the best thing is to ignore them.

Today’s NRA-ILA Grassroots Alert outrage of the week.

This week’s outrage comes to us from Winchendon, Massachusetts where, in yet another case of “zero-tolerance” enforcement defying common sense, fourth-grader Bradley Geslak was suspended from Toy Town Elementary School for bringing a Memorial Day souvenir to school.

According to a May 29, Telegram.com article, a uniformed veteran gave the 10-year-old two empty rifle shell casings from blanks used during the town’s Memorial Day celebration Monday morning. Bradley gave one of the empty casings to his grandfather and kept the other as a souvenir. The trouble began when he took his souvenir to school the next day.

“He was just playing with it at lunch,” explained Crystal Geslak, Bradley’s mother. “He wasn’t showing it to anyone; he had it in his hand and was playing with it.”

A teacher saw him with the harmless piece of brass and confiscated it. Ms. Geslak was then called at work and told to come and pick up her son, who had been suspended for five days!

Well, the problem is, if you don’t have a license to have a firearm in Massachuetts, you can’t even possess ammunition or ammunition components.   The truth is, this kid and everyone involved in this situation is lucky that it’s only resulting in a five day suspension.  Under Massachusetts law, both the kid, the veteran who gave the kid the empty shell casing, and the teacher to took if from the kid could be looking at two years in prison for having ammunition components without a license.

These are the “reasonable restrictions” that the Brady Campaign wants to impose on the rest of the country.  And they call us “nuts” and “paranoid” for arguing that these regulations are anything but reasonable.   Yet in this case, the following people could be looking at two years in jail:

1. A 10 year old kid.
2. One of our nation’s veterans
3. An elementary school teacher

Sound reasonable to you?  Me neither.

I may not always be a huge fan of Justice Kennedy’s juris prudence, but holy crap did we dodge a bullet when the Democrats in Congress rejected the nomination of Robert Bork.

Did I say guns?  I meant dogs.  Eric has a follow up to the post we linked to yesterday.

“I think eliminating vicious dogs is as important to reclaiming our cities as controlling gun violence and making sure our young people are going to school,” says Yates.

Tyrone Yates is as big a proponent of gun control as he is rounding up people’s pets and exterminating them.  You know, if you change two letters in his first name, I think you can come up with something more appropriate.  Tyrant Yates — yeah, that’s better.  I continue to be amazed that people will vote to keep power hungry politicians like this in office.  And yet these are our big city politicians.  It’s almost like people in big cities like having government run their lives.

A government that goes around invading people’s homes to snatch away family pets and exterminate them has crossed the line and lost any claim to legitimacy it might have.  In sincerely hope that other politicians in Ohio aren’t interested in perpetrating a crime like Tyrant Yates proposes.

Made a few revisions to the e-postal match below.  For one, I said there was a total of forty shots and forty points.  That was incorrect.  That might be true for an actual silhouette match, where there are two banks of animals, but I figured we’d stick to one target, which only has one bank, so twenty shots and twenty animals.  Done in four strings of five.

Secondly, at the suggestion of Mr. C, I added a masochist class, where you can shoot all 20 animals, and your score is however many shots it takes you to hit them all.  In this class, you can hit the animals twice, and it still counts.  Also, if there’s any interest in an air pistol class, I’d be happy to add that.  If I get one person interested in that, I’ll shoot that class with you.

Good editorial in The Daily News talking about the lawsuit the Boy Scouts have filed against the City of Philadelphia, who are trying to evict them because they exclude gays.  The Inqurer has run other editorials denouncing the Boy Scouts position, and arguing the city is justified in what it’s doing.

I take a bit of a conflicted position on it, in that I believe the Boy Scouts of America is wrong for excluding homosexuals and atheists from scouting, but I also think the city is wrong for punishing this particular troop because of the backwards policies promulgated by the national organization.  The next thing you know, they’ll be punishing local shooting clubs because they don’t like what the NRA does… oh wait.

The kids in the Philadelphia Boy Scouts shouldn’t be made to suffer for the position of the national organization over which they have no control.  This is political grandstanding, pure and simple, and it’s shameful.  Scouting offers a lot of positive things to young boys, and in a city that’s in desperate need of giving young boys positive leadership, and keeping them out of trouble, it seems to me that this move is supremely short sighted on the part of the city politicians.

I understand their beef with the Boy Scouts of America.  I even share it.  But they are a private organization, and are free to exclude whoever they want.  The Boy Scouts are not a hate group.  They don’t preach discrimination, or notions that some people are better than others; they view homosexuality and atheism as immoral behavior and belief.  I disagree with them strongly on this matter, but that’s what the national organization has decided.  The city politicians should be free to denounce this all they want, but they shouldn’t go so far as punishing the boys of this local troop by canceling their lease.

The Philly media seem to act surprised that people are taking high gas prices in stride:

Twenty-nine years ago, service-station owner Steven Lankin watched as a summer-night Levittown crowd seething over gas rationing, two-hour lines at the pumps, and a then-stunning hike to $1 a gallon turn violent.

What began as a truckers’ gas-crisis protest lasted two nights, June 23 and 24, 1979. It drew thousands of people and left 100 people injured, nearly 200 arrested, and one Shell station shattered in the first gasoline revolt in American history.

When inflation is considered, today’s drivers are paying more for gas; $4 in 2008 is equivalent to $1.35 in 1979 terms. Even so, the gas-buying crowd remains civil, though unhappy, at Levittown’s Five Points intersection, where the riots broke out in front of the Getty station Lankin has run since 1964.

I think you’d find people were more pissed off at the fact that there was no gas, and people had to wait in line, because government price controls created shortages which forced the government to ration gasoline.  The price may be higher today than it was then, but because the government has, for the most part, not gotten involved with manipulating the free market price of oil, there are no shortages or lines, and we don’t need rationing.

Of course, the funny thing about the gas riots of the 70s, was you had people vandalizing gas stations over the fact that there were lines for gas, and chronic shortages, only to realize later that meant there were fewer stations that were able to sell gas.   Sounds like the kind of collective stupidity South Park likes to parody, only this time it was real.

No sooner does Ahab debunk the Brady’s latest post on “God, not Guns” than it disppears down the memory hole.  Turns out a lot of gun people are really into this Jesus thing, and know their stuff.  I guess the Brady’s haven’t been listening much to Barack Obama tell them about people clinging to religion and guns.

“British Columbia Severed Feet Mystery Deepens.” I tend to think when you have severed feet washing up on shore, complete with socks and shoes, that mystery is starting off on a level that’s already about as deep as you can get.  I’m also rather surprised that this article reveals that body parts washing up on shore isn’t all that unusual.  I don’t know about you, but if I’m out in the surf with a boogie board, and I notice an uninvited passenger that turns out to be an arm, leg, or severed head — that’s it man, my ocean going days are over.

1851 Navy and 1872 Cimmaron Open Top Revolvers.

This is the June edition of Mr. Completely’s E-Postal Matches.  Many thanks to Manfred for hosting last e-postal.   Due to some confusion on my part as to when the match ended, I didn’t manage to get to the range in time this month.

Metallic Silhouette has its origins among the followers of Pancho Villa, in early twentieth century Mexico, where live animals were originally placed at various distances.  Presumably that got a bit messy, so by the mid-twentieth century they had made the transition to metallic cutouts of the live animals, and Metallic Silhouette was born.  The first match took place in Mexico City in 1952.  The targets were Gallinas (Chickens) at 200 meters, Guajalotes (Turkeys) at 385 Meters, and Borregos (Rams) at 500 meters.  Later on, the Javelina (Pigs) would be added at 300 meters.  The National Rifle Assocation began sanctioning Silhouette competition in 1972.

Since we’re limited in target type and distance in our e-postal matches, our silhouette match has to be roughly approximated.

The target we will be using is here.

Rules are this:

Place the target at 10 yards or 25 feet, whichever is available at your range. If you want to compete in the rimfire rifle category, targets will be placed at 50 feet, or about 20 yards.

Take one carefully aimed shot at each animal on the sheet, for a total of 20 shots.

Silhouette is generally shot in strings of five.  Put the target out, load the magazine up, and take 5 carefully aimed shot at each of whatever animal you’re on, going from left to right.  Start with the string of five chickens, and work your way down to the rams.

But here’s the catch with this match.  In Metallic Silhouette, if you miss your shot, and hit another animal, you loose the animal you hit, and the animal you were aiming at, so it’s a double loss.  On paper, there’s no good way to simulate animals that have been knocked down, so we’ll make the rule this:

Any animal that has two hits on it counts as a miss.  Any animal that has one shot on the silhouette or touching it, counts as a hit.  Any miss not touching an animal is just a miss.  Each hit counts as one, for a maximum score of 20.

Shooting position for all classes is offhand standing, unsupported, one or two hands allowed.

CLASSES:

CLASS ONE: Rimfire - Iron Sight. Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.

CLASS TWO: Rimfire - Optic Sight. Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.

CLASS THREE: Centerfire - Iron Sight. Any centerfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.

CLASS FOUR: Centerfire - Optic Sight. Any centerfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.

CLASS FIVE: Rimfire Rifle - Iron Sight. Any rimfire rifle. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.  Target to be placed at 50 feet or ~20 yards.

CLASS SIX: Rimfire Rifle - Optic Sight. Any rimfire rifle. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.  Target to be placed at 50 feet or ~20 yards.

BONUS CLASS: Masochist class.  Take as many shots as you need to hit all animals.  In this class, two shots on an animal still count as a hit.  Your score is the number of shots it takes to hit all of them.  No shotguns, please!  But if you want to enter a submachine gun, I’d be game for that :’)  I swear the ammunition manufacturers did not bribe me to create this class!

MULTIPLE ENTRIES: One entry will be taken per gun per class, though you may shoot the match as many times as you like, and submit your highest entry.  You can make multiple entries in a single class as long as you use a different gun.  You can use the same gun in two classes if you add or subtract optics.

Don’t worry if your score is low.  Silhouette is a difficult discipline, and scores aren’t supposed to be high unless you’re an expert shooter and have been doing silhouette for 20 years.  This match is meant to be difficult, and will be especially difficult for centerfire pistol shooters.  In fact, if you’re good, you will probably beat me, as I’m still a beginner.  There’s no embarrassment in scoring low, only in not submitting an entry!

Entries should be mailed to sebastian at snowflakesinhell dot com by midnight on the 30th of June, which is a Monday.   Results will be posted soon after.

UPDATE: I’ll also score anyone who wants to enter with an air pistol.  I shoot open sight with air pistol, so I’ll create a category for that if I get two shooters in the same category.

Passed 41 to 30.  This law actually stipulates biometric technology, which I don’t think will ever be reliable enough.  As might be expected, law enforcement is exempt.

Apparently the reason Hillary was crying is because she felt entitled because she’s white.

I actually agree with him that Hillary feels she’s entitled, but I think she feels that way because she’s Hillary.  I couldn’t give a flying fossilized pterodactyl turd that Barack Strawberry Shortcake Obama is a black guy and Hillary is a white woman.  I’m not voting for him because his policies would be bad for the country, and because I don’t want to elect a president who’s spiritual mentors continue to fan the flames of racial division.  America has had enough of that.

The ultimate clip loader for the Ruger Mk II and Mk III and the Buckmark.  The only problem I’d have is that my club has a five round limit on magazines.  A highly obnoxious rule, especially if you’re an M1 shooter, but it’s mostly a shotgun and silhouette club, and it’s 10 minutes from my house.

Looks like they are trying to post more in hopes of attracting more traffic.  I was wondering why I suddenly had three new posts in Bloglines, which is unusual for them.  Either way, they point out that the guy who got into a gunfight in Seattle, and has a CHL from the State of Washington, never should have had one.  Well, the fact that get got into a scuffle with someone and shot him ought to be an indication he wasn’t the type of person who ought to be armed.  Regardless, the fact that he was addicted to a controlled substance means he wasn’t eligible to own a firearm, let alone carry one.  CeaseFire Washington had this to say:

Kristen Comer, executive director of Washington Ceasefire, a gun-control advocacy group, said the situation underscores problems with Washington state’s concealed-weapon law.

“The background checks done in Washington state are very primitive,” she said. “We didn’t have background checks before 1994.”

Right now there are two background checks, Comer said.

The state check is the equivalent of law enforcement asking each other if “John Doe is on your list,” Comer said. “And the federal system and the state system don’t talk to each other much, as far as mental health goes.”

The problem is, there is no more thorough background check that would have likely turned up these records, since it’s not clear they exist.  Was there ever a previous adjudication or commitment?  Were the authorities ever involved in his addiction treatment?  No doubt this will be used as an example of why we need ever deeper probing of carry license applicants, but it’s not clear it would have made a difference in this case.

Rachel Lucas demonstrates how to refine the rant into a fine art:

Finally, regarding principles. I understand that some of you will not vote for McCain because of your principles, and I do not question your principles. I disagree with your conclusions about what will follow your application of them.

Rachel has been voting for as long as I have, since George H.W. Bush, and feels the same about her choices since then as I do.  Maybe I feel that way because I never got to vote for Reagan, but then again, I don’t think I really liked Reagan all that much either.

Looks like they are pushing the “Lost and Stolen” crap there too.  Sounds like they managed to get a 3/5th supermajority requirement in that goes into effect on June 1st, which will raise the barrier for passing more gun laws in that state, so if this can be stopped now, it might have a hard time passing at a later date.

UPDATE: Kurt updates:

I didn’t make that very clear. It’s not that we managed to get a 3/5ths requirement–it’s just that the deadline for the end of the spring session is May 31st. The budget is such a mess that they’ll almost certainly have to call special sessions during the summer, so they’ll keep meeting, but anything passed during a special session must pass by super-majority.

Damn shame.  Imagine how much better off we’d be if it took a bare majority to repeal a law but a supermajority to pass one?

Eric posts about a historic firehouse that’s being demolished in Philadelphia to make way for Ed & Mike’s Convention Mega Emporium.  It goes on to talk about the declining convention business.  Having just attended one of the larger conventions out there, I can’t imagine there are that many large events that make this kind of project a good investment.  Even after Philadelphia completes the expansion, I’d be doubtful that NRA would ever return of Philadelphia, given Mayor Nutter’s glowing love for the second amendment.  It’s hard to see how a city like Philadelphia can compete for convention business with a city like Las Vegas, or even a smaller city like Orlando.

Apparently a Pennsylvania lawmaker is looking to repeal state preemption of dog breed specific legislation because of one incident in his district.  This is a lot like gun control, where the solution is to punish irresponsible owners, not to try to control the species of dog.

New Jersey politicians don’t seem to want to allow oil companies to price gasoline differently in different markets.  If New Jersey outlaws zone pricing, the end result is going to be shortages of gasoline in some areas, and surpluses in others, which won’t get evened out through the price system.  New Jersey already regulates the frequency at which gasoline prices may increase, which causes prices to fall more slowly than in the rest of the country.

Maybe the oil companies should just take a lesson from Ronnie Barrett, and tell New Jersey that if they don’t want to have a free market in oil, then fine, they don’t get any.  Maybe then the voters there will have some motivation to change the smelly political diaper.