Snowflakes in Hell

Todd Jarrett has made me a better Silhouette shooter.  Tonight was our thursday airgun match.  I started out on chickens, doing about what I normally do, got into pigs, and then noticed I was moving the gun when I pulled the trigger.  I then remembered Todd saying “You have to increase your grip strength by 20%, at least.” so I tightened up on the grip until the gun started shaking.  I backed it off a bit until the excessive movement stopped, and holding a much firmer grip than I was used to, starting knocking down animal after animal.  I kept my game up until my hand got tired, and I started trailing off on the rams.  But damn, I shot a AAA score of 37.  That’s ten whole friggin animals better than I had shot at any previous Thursday airgun matches, and better than I shot at states.  It’s amazing such a simple thing can make such a difference.  Wow!

Both Another Gun Blog and No Looking Backwards have covered California’s “Hasta La Vista Tax” which taxes people over a certain income for leaving the state.  Rich flight has created a serious revenue problem for California.

There’s a good case to be made that this law is unconstitutional, because it interferes with the common law right to free movement and travel.  There is a pretty strong body of law which would speak against such a law’s constitutionality.  Anyone subject to this tax probably has a good case to take into the federal courts.  California has no respect for the second amendment, it’s hardly surprising they don’t respect unenumerated rights as well.  Anything’s fair when it comes to soaking the rich, I guess.

Bernard Bell is the associate dean at Rutgers Law School, and thinks that there should be strict liability for gun owners:

A move toward absolute liability would ideally be accompanied by private insurers’ willingness to insure gun owners against such liability. Such insurance should be separate from standard homeowners’ insurance, so that homeowners who do not own guns are not required to subsidize those who do.

The cost of insurance would reflect the expected cost of compensating gun injuries to innocent people. Individuals would then have the incentive to weigh the cost of injuries to others in deciding whether to purchase or keep firearms.

And insurance companies might well offer incentives, in the form of lower rates, to gun owners who engage in practices that decrease the likelihood of accidental injuries, such as trigger locks, safe storage and regular courses in maintenance and use of handguns.

Gun control people everywhere are thinking up ways to get around Heller, in order to discourage people from owning guns, and especially discouraging people from using them in self-defense.  Sadly, most of this stuff is probably not going to get the scrutiny they deserve from the courts, which is why the political fight is still paramount.

I wonder if Professor Bell is open to the idea that these liability issues should be applied equally to the police and military?

New Jersey Assemblywoman Joan Quigley asked the question:

I introduced that bill in the spring of 2006. If it had actually become law on the day it was introduced, Mr. Braico would have been able to accumulate 33 handguns between then and now. I fail to see how that’s an unreasonable restriction on his civil rights. And I do wonder what he might have done with all those deadly weapons.

An intrepid gun owner in The Garden State provides her with an answer:

When I first bought my XD-40 handgun, it was quite a large caliber, and so expensive to use for target practice. As my self-defense instructor told me, a large caliber is necessary for “stopping power” in self-defense situations. However, I immediately bought a smaller, inexpensive weapon - a .22-caliber Browning Buckmark - for target practice, just to save money. There, already, were two guns in one month.

However, both of those guns were too large for my wife to operate, so we bought a Lady Smith revolver, which is specially designed for the smaller hands of a woman. At that time, we discovered that the XD-40 jams quite a lot (a design flaw, I believe, but certainly a problem in a self-defense situation), so we bought a large Ruger six-shooter as a more reliable alternative to the XD-40.

The point is we bought more than one per month, for good reason.

I would say if the XD-40 jams a lot, it’s either a specific problem with the gun, or his wife is limp wristing it.  The XD line are generally pretty reliable from what I’ve heard.  But it’s a great way to point out why the one gun a month issue is a problem.  The burden should be on the people advocating it to prove it reduces crime, of which there is currently no evidence whatsoever.

Hat Tip to Cemetery’s Weblog

I’ve had a bit to say about why we don’t dominate the Olympics here, but Kim has some more, and I think he’s right about this:

The problem is that outside the Army Marksmanship Unit, there are no professional Olympic shooters in America—no sponsorships, no funding from any source—so therefore people cannot afford to train for 8-10 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, which is what’s required to win the Olympics, in any sport (ask Michael Phelps about the training required to win Olympic Gold).

So when we say that we “should” be winning Olympic gold medals in the shooting sports, because we are by golly the Land of the Second Amendment and the Nation of Riflemen, we forget that winning Olympic medals is not just raw talent, but dedication—and dedication not just from the participants, but from We The People.

If there is no public support for Olympic shooting, though, then we have no right to complain when our amateur shooters can’t compete against the professionals of other countries.

If we want to be winners, money has to flow into these sports, and right now, not enough is.

A concealed carry permit holder foils an armed robbery in Pennsylvania.

A Pennsylvania man gets busted for having a loaded gun in his car.  He has an LTCF in Pennsylvania, but not for New Jersey.  My bet is he forgot he had the gun in the car.  I do not normally keep loaded guns in my car, but I do often keep my range bag in the car.  You don’t know how often I’ve had to turn around because I suddenly realized I had hollow tip .22LR rounds in my vehicle, which is a serious crime in New Jersey.  Gun owners would be wise, before entering New Jersey, to do a complete vehicle search of their cars to ensure there is no hollow point ammunition floating around in it.  Definitely check to make sure you don’t have a firearm in the vehicle.

New Jersey laws are designed to do one thing: put firearms owners and shooters in jail.  Keep that in mind when traveling over the river where the second amendment does not apply.

More anti-gun folks who can’t control their rage.  And yet they think they are qualified to control us?

Among the rights that black bears have in New Jersey is not being killed by family pets when they wander onto your property.  I’m surprised the mother didn’t kill the dog.  A grizzly mama would have.  Charges in this case are outrageous.  The dog was penned, scaled the pen, and attacked the bear on their own property.  What’s the problem?

The Republicans, if they are smart, will make an election issue out of the hunter arrested at Pelosi’s hotel at the Democratic National Convention.  Especially with these guys running around.  Hunters need to understand that gun control is absolutely a threat to them, as this incident pretty clearly demonstrates.  What are hunters more concerned about, do think, global warming, or ended up in jail and with charges because they drove through the wrong jurisdiction?

If I were NRA, I’d canvas Colorado and other hunting states pointing out this incident, and pointing out that Pelosi’s reaction showed no concerned for a hunter caught up in a legal technicality.

Why do I get the feeling that Ray Schoenke at the Democratic National Convention is the fat kid in the school cafeteria that no one wants to sit with.  And for good reason:

Schoenke is in Denver this week making the rounds. He mingled with fellow sportsmen at Wednesday afternoon’s briefing with the National Wildlife Federation at the Curtis Hotel and admitted that his big idea — that a pro-conservation gun rights group can supplant the NRA — remains a tough sell to Democrats who’ve seen the fury of NRA members at the ballot box.

“The NRA is a formidable opponent, and people are concerned about that,” Schoenke said.

“The reaction is positive, but the idea is still new.”

Yeah, Ray, because we’re not stupid, and neither are most Democrats.  Maybe you could get traction if you weren’t, you know, a gun control group.  And where’s your outrage that your fellow Democrats arrested a hunter?  Schoenke and American Hunters and Shooters Association is more interested in selling the Democrats on his false flag operation than he is in sticking up for actual hunters.  That should tell you something.