Snowflakes in Hell

Through Ricketyclick, I found this interesting civics literacy quiz.   Go see how you compare to most of the college freshman and seniors today.  I missed 4 questions, for an A.  I missed 19, 27, 36, and 58.   It’s a sixty question test.  I sometimes wish you had a pass a basic civics test to vote, but there’s probably no way to do that without it getting abused.

Crap like this scares the hell out of me:

Dismiss it all you like, but I’ve heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who’ve been intuitively blown away by Obama’s presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it’s just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.

Here’s where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

The reverence of Ronald Reagan that you get from conservatives can get kind of old sometimes, but you will never hear something like this from a Republican or libertarian.  We do not worship our politicians.  We don’t want them to help us find a new way of being.  We do not want them to help us evolve.  Generally, we want them to leave us the hell alone to live our lives.  Obama can try all he wants, he doesn’t speak to my soul.  He is just a man.  Repeat after me lefties: he is just a man.

I’d say thanks to Instapundit, but now I will have to spend the rest of the night trying to restore my faith in humanity.

In terms of violent crime rates, it’s not even close.

UPDATE: Looking at the involved statistics, I’ve noticed one problem.  The London statistics for violent crime include common assault, which isn’t included in the Jacksonville and Ft. Meyers statitics, so you have to strip that figure out for London in order to make a more valid comparison, which results in London’s violent crime rate being 1717 per 100,000 population, which is still higher than Jacksonville and Fort Meyers.  Still, you’re far less likely to be killed in London than in either city, statistically speaking, but I’m not sure how comforted I am by “Don’t worry, our criminals will just beat the hell out of you!”

Looks like HB 1845 is going to be up for a vote in the Senate Judiciary Commitee next week.  This includes the provision allowing carrying of firearms into Pennsylvania State Parks, prevents confiscations in the event of a state of emergency, and allows for sheriffs to issue emergency LTCFs for people who’s lives are actively threatened.

Let’s get this onto the floor and up for a vote in the full senate, so that we can get this on Rendell’s desk.

Hat tip to Eric for this incident in Holland:

At a fashion show to promote tolerance of gay people on April 30, a national holiday in Holland, celebrating the birthday of the late Queen Juliana, a group of ten Muslim youths dragged gay model Mike Du Pree down from the catwalk, beating him up and breaking his nose. A second model who tried to help out was also attacked.

Our gays can shoot back. If I see a bunch of violent thugs of a proportedly peaceful religion beating up on a gay guy in broad daylight on a public street, I can too.

Mr. Completely’s club banned the Taco Grip for bowling pin matches after he apparently won too much:

Last Fall it was finally coming together, and although still not as fast as other techniques, having few misses made up the slack. This year I won the first three of four matches of the season. The “Rule Maker” decided that my shooting style should be banned, and he changed the rules, banning the way I shoot. There is no rules committee or any rules oversight of any kind, so he can do whatever he wants, and there is no appeal process to his decision.

There are a lot of jackasses out there, unfortunately.  The guys I shoot IHMSA and Indoor Silhouette with at my club all seem to be nice folks to shoot with, so I’ve been lucky in that regard.  They’ve all been encouraging and have helped me out.

But there are a lot of clubs out there that are run by jackasses.  I’ve heard lots of stories from folks about various problems like this, or other things, such as black rifles being frowned on, or various definitions of “rapid fire” that tend to boil down to “we don’t like the way you look so you’re rapid firing, and we don’t like it.”  Basically, it’s a lot of crap that’s going to destroy the shooting community.  Shooting should be fun, and the goal of any club should be to maximize people’s enjoyment of the shooting sports.  Yes, clubs need rules, and we can’t comprimise or cut corners on safety, but if your club is driving people away, you need to start looking at ways to change the leadership.  The future of the shooting sports depends on a healthy and welcoming club culture.

Joe tells the story.

First they pass gun laws which are illegal, now the Sheriff of Philadelphia has apparently refused to do one of his key functions, which is to foreclose on houses:

With the economy soft and thousands of Philadelphians delinquent on their mortgages, Sheriff Green this spring refused to hold a court-ordered foreclosure auction. His move raised eyebrows on the bench and dropped jaws among lenders and their attorneys, who accuse him of shirking his duty to enforce legal contracts.

When I was shopping for a house, at the height of the sub-prime business, I avoided it because it looked like a stupendously bad idea.  Why not lock in a low interest rate for 30 years?  If you didn’t think carefully, or read the fine print, why should you be able to evade responsibility for your mistake?

And before you say I don’t have a heart, and don’t care about poor people, how do you think those poor people are going to fare when no one will lend them money for mortgages, or other loans, because banks decide that making loans in Philadelphia is too risky because the law doesn’t apply there?

Joe Huffman is going to be giving a presentation about us (the gun blogosphere) and our activities as of late to the Boeing Rifle and Pistol Club.  I’m guessing Boeing makes UAVs, and I’m thinking a great way for Boeing to do blogger outreach is to send us one to evaluate.  Preferably with missiles.  I’m sure I can find someone who has a junk yard who is sympathetic to our evaluating its effectiveness on vehicles.

Apparently there’s a journalist in Canada that thinks James Madison should be shot.  No, seriously.

… is apparently completely awesome.

Down the memory hole.

Ahab has some thoughts on a comment that appeared last night on the blog.  Normally, I’ll delete crazy shit like that, but sometimes I think we have to confront the skeletons in the closet of our movement.  I tend to think most folks like that are internet brave, and actually wouldn’t follow through with their threat.  But there are folks out there, thankfully a small minority, who don’t believe violence against a government is an absolute last resort; a measure only to be resorted to when there’s no legal or political option left for the protecton of constitutional rights.  They believe they get to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to enforcing their own interpretation of their right to bear arms.  It’s an attitude that I think needs to be confronted, rather than swept under the rug.

Blackwater is opening a training facility in San Diego.  How exactly are they getting around California’s assault weapons ban?  I know they are able to get new machine guns because of the contractor exemption, but that doesn’t exempt them from California’s ban, does it?

Looks like Support Your Local Gun Fighter has moved to a new corral.  Looks OK to me.

A lot of folks have mentioned that it’s momentus that for the first time we’ve nominated an African American to head up a major party presidential ticket, and I agree.  But we’re not really past the whole race thing until doing that isn’t momentus, and, in fact, the person’s race isn’t even a campaign issue.  We’re not quite there yet.

Or he’ll whup ya.

It’s called security theater.  It shows the guy inside that the police are serious, that he can’t win, and that he should just give up.  It’s also very very fun to get decked out in surplus military gear and take the surplus M113 the feds gave you as part of their homeland security program for a ride.  I mean, they gave it to the department right?  Might as well use it!

Orin Kerr opines on the legality of it here, and here.   Short answer: it ain’t.

They think the next election will be a blowout for Obama, and that America is a force for evil.  I wonder if anyone sought out the opinion of european jews for that poll, well, at least the ones that europeans didn’t kill or drive off the continent.  There’s plenty of evil to go around in this world, and Europe sure as hell isn’t exempt, and damn sure doesn’t get to look down on us.

If you’re of the Jewish persuasion, and like guns, this is for you.  Pretty clearly she’s clinging to religion and guns out of a sense of bitterness, and all on the same t-shirt.   If you want to buy one of those, you can here.  If you’re Jewish, I’m going to bet your chances of being victim of an anti-semitic hate crime go down if you’re wearing that.  Just a guess.