Snowflakes in Hell

Time to crack out the Maßkrug.  Trink, Trink, Brüderlein, Trink!

Masskrug Bier

It looks like the lawsuit by NRA and SAF against the City of San Francisco may fall flat on its face due to failure to tie a City Ordinance banning guns from public property to the lease agreement promulgated by the housing authority, which is apparently a federal entity.

Ordinarily, you win some and you lose some, which is why you proceed on multiple fronts, but this is a big enough screw up that the City of San Francisco might be able to seek to have their legal costs recovered. These are not mistakes we can afford to make in the immediate post-Heller legal climate.  Hopefully this isn’t as bad as these articles seem to make it out to be.  Don Kates is one of the lead attorneys on this case, and he’s experienced at these kinds of suits, so it’s kind of hard to believe he’d make a mistake like this.

Hat tip to War on Guns

UPDATE: In the comments Chuck Michel says: “I assure you there is no screw up here“  That’s good to hear.

Todd Zywicki thinks this ticket has a distinctly Western feel to it:

It feels like Goldwaterism. And I think this trickles through to the worldview of the candidates and then to policy. It seems pretty clear to me (especially after last night) that John McCain sees himself as Gary Cooper riding into to town to single-handedly clean-up corruption and gun down the rascals.

Palin has a female version of this feel to me. I saw one similar point by Chris Matthews talking about Palin–he observed that although women are going to like Palin “men will like them too.” Why? Because she likes men, and peole like those who like them. What does he mean? I think it is related to this. She has a sense of independence. But also, she obviously likes sports (and was a sportscaster), her speech suggests that she likes cracking jokes and being sarcastic but in a non-mean-spirited way (contra some of Jim’s observations–her cracks come across as locker room “razzing” to me). This has a western tinge to me as well.

If McCain actually were going to ride into town to clean-up corruption by gunning down rascals I might feel better about voting for him.  But seriously, I do agree about the western feel this ticket has, and I like it.  I also think it’s interesting that both Bitter and I see reflections of Sandy Froman in Palin.  Sandy is also a Western woman.

Be very afraid:

Under the treaty, governments would also be required to report their arms transfers to an international register, a move which arms control advocates say will lead to greater public scrutiny and confidence.

If these ideas are allowed to proliferate, and find roots, the shooting community in this country will be in a lot of trouble.  Got an eye on a new Glock?  Too bad, they won’t export to the United States because we lack proper control.  New Anschutz?  Too bad, your country doesn’t track firearms closely enough.  Definitely forget about a Beretta, you citizen of a third world arms bazaar you!

It’s a serious worry that in a few decades, international treaty will make it nearly impossible for Americans to import arms from overseas.  That’ll be a boon to the American gun manufacturers, but a detriment to the shooting community as a whole.

Team up to slash and burn the Heller ruling, that is.

Bitter does a much more detailed comparison of the outreach by the Republican National Committee and the Democrat National Committee when compared to the National Rifle Association.  In short, NRA did pretty well in comparison.

Mrs. Ahab points out Obama’s stellar legislative accomplishments in the United States Senate.  Of course, the less he does, the happier I am.  But that certainly means I don’t want to see him in the White House.

Last night those of us who shoot Thursday airgun silhouette at the club learned of an air pistol match held on wednesday evenings at the Delran Junior Marksman Club.  In virtually any other state, this wouldn’t really be an issue at all to go to the match.  But Delran is in New Jersey, and in New Jersey, airguns are firearms, and as we know, firearms are illegal in New Jersey.  You can only possess them under exceptions.

One of those exceptions is traveling to a shooting match, but you must go directly there.  You are only allowed to deviate in your course of travel as reasonably necessary under the circumstances.  They get to define reasonably necessary.  Considering I have to travel from work, my course of travel through New Jersey would be direct, but my entire course of travel would not be.  I’d also have to make sure I can find the range first, so I don’t risk getting lost.  And god help me if I have a hollow nose .22LR cartridge floating around in my car or range bag.

I’d like to shoot matches in New Jersey, but after hearing many a horror story from New Jersey gun attorneys of ordinary gun owners, including ones from Pennsylvania, ending up in serious trouble over there for things which are not illegal in any other state, I’m wary of traveling over there to shoot.

Sailorcurt has a pretty good illustrated guide to the modern isosceles stance that Todd Jarrett taught us at the Gun Blogger Summer Camp.  It also helped improve his speed shooting when he tried it.  Prior to Todd’s instruction, I shot a modified weaver stance.  It’ll take me a while to unlearn that.  Go have a look if you want to improve your speed shooting.

Speaking of speed shooting, I found a local IDPA match.  It’s not sanctioned, but it’ll do.  Still looking for a good steel match somewhere, and a USPSA match that’s not in fraking New Jersey.