Snowflakes in Hell

Time has posted fond farewells for 2008, and number 17 is Charlton Heston.  However, the writer seems confused:

Offscreen, Heston was a figure of epic contradictions. In the ’60s he marched with Martin Luther King; in the ’90s he headed the National Rifle Association.

There’s nothing contradictory about civil rights work.

Other bloggers review their best stories for the year.  I choose to satisfy my inner traffic whore and look at my traffic stats for the year.  The numbers look a hell of a lot better than my 401k which kind of looks like this, only with a negative slope:

Thank you to all my readers, and I hope you have a great New Years celebration.

Firearms and Freedom has a post that shows at least some schools aren’t taking zero tolerance thing too terribly serious.  That said, you should know where your guns are.

Apparently despite originally being Chicago Public School’s superintendent, he also does a lot of anti-gun activism on the side.  Thank God the federal governments limited and enumerated powers don’t include education!  (*smirk* I can’t even say that with a straight face) Apparently Chicago Public Schools also have a 51% graduation rate.  That’s almost as much fun as Bill “The Education President” Clinton taking Arkansas from 49th in the nation to 47th.

This “documentary” by The Discovery Channel is why I don’t watch the Discovery Channel anymore.  When it first came on the air years ago, it was worth watching.  Then it went into all natural disasters, all the time mode.  Now it has maybe one show that I would think about watching.

Bitter and I plan to drop cable service shortly.  It’s horrendously expensive for digital HD, and we hardly watch it.  I’d rather save the money and spend it on ammunition, which is more entertaining for me than sitting in front of the boob tube watching overpriced, bad cable programming.

The Brady Campaign has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to enjoin the Department of Interior from changing its rules to allow concealed carry in National Parks.

The rule will allow guns in rural and urban national park areas around the country, from Wyoming’s Yellowstone and California’s Yosemite to Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell. The suit was filed on behalf of the Brady Campaign and its members, including school teachers in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas who are canceling or curtailing school trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. now that the Bush Administration will be allowing guns in these national park areas.

Carrying firearms is still prohibited on the National Mall and at Ellis Island, because the states they are in prohibit carrying of firearms.  Hell, even Independence Hall in Philadelphia will still be off limits, because while Pennsylvania allows for licensed concealed carry, access to Independence National Historical Park is through a a federal facility, where guns are still illegal.  This is fear mongering, pure and simple.  As usual with the Brady folks, these claims are patently false.

UPDATE: Dave Hardy, who worked in the DOI Solicitor’s office as an attorney for a number of years, has some thoughts on this as well.

NSSF has asked us to make at least one New Years resolution to take a new shooter to the range, and Caleb takes it one step further.

Makes me glad I got a Liberty Safe.

Cemetery finds some more PSH from the media over in New Jersey on .50 caliber rifles.

UPDATE: Looks like they are increasing the penalties for machine gun posesssion too.  If at first you don’t succeed, try again, this time with more enthusiasm!

Looks like the Pennsylvania cell phone ban bill is back:

Democratic state Rep. Josh Shapiro plans to reintroduce his bill to outlaw handheld phones while driving.

For Josh Shapiro, the numbers tell the story.

Last year, according to the state police, there were 1,245 accidents on Pennsylvania’s roadways where a driver was talking on a handheld cell phone, compared to 56 accidents with a driver using a hands-free device.

In 2006, the totals were eerily similar: 1,241 crashes with handheld phones; 60 with hands-free.

Shapiro, a Democratic state representative from the 153rd District, which includes most of Abington and part of Upper Dublin, wants to make it illegal to drive while talking on a handheld cell phone.

Just to give reader some sense of scale here, there were 6,657 crashes involving heavy trucks in Pennsylvania in 2006, 4,763 accidents involving pedestrians and 3,889 motorcycle accidents.  Even bicycle accidents are higher.  On the scale of vehicular dangers Pennsylvanians face, this is a small one.  We have accepted in Pennsylvania that motorcyclist deserve to have the freedom to choose not to wear a helmet, even though this is shown to make our highways more dangerous.  I think people should have to freedom to responsible use a cell phone while driving.  Distracted and careless driving is already a crime in most states.  At the very most, cell phone use while driving should be a secondary offense.

TD tells the story of a guy who’s Smith & Wesson blew up.  Looks like a manufacturing defect.

They scrutinized a wood flute quite a bit, but let someone go through with the individual components, in powder form, of black powder.

Blackfork talks about working up subsonic .223 loads for his suppressed AR.  Bullets moving at supersonic speeds will create a small sonic boom that can still create a noise problem.

Dave Hardy has some interesting posts — here, on a Second Amendment incorporation case, and also discusses a post by Clayton Cramer on other, more general 14th Amendment issues.

The Republicans are gearing up to delay the confirmation of Eric Holder.  The 111th Congress is sworn in on January 3rd, 2009, and starts session January 6th.  It’ll be important to start hitting your local critter with letters and phone calls as soon as the 111th Congress is seated.   Defeating a nomination is difficult work, but Holder is bad enough we should give it the old college try, and there’s a lot of blue dog Democrats out there that claim to be sympathetic to our issue.  We should hold them to that.

UPDATE: I’ll put aside my differences with Senator Spector for now, since he’s one of the GOP senators that’s willing to start asking questions.

Part CCLXI

Dave Kopel thinks there’s a correlation.

If we could get op-eds like this printed in local newspapers throughout the country, using the arguments outlined here, we’d be in far better shape for fighting on this issue than we are right now:

However, if some people had their way, my father would be a felon the next time he passed on a firearm to a family member. These people complain about a so-called “gun show loophole,” which, if you were to accept the rhetoric of firearm prohibitionists, is responsible for an endless stream of death and carnage.

In truth, attempts to close the “loophole” are really attacks on cherished freedoms that have been quietly enjoyed by millions of Americans since the founding of our nation. With the exception of those unfortunate residents of a few nanny-states, citizens of the U.S. always have been able to gift, buy, sell and trade firearms without the interference of government.

Read the whole thing.  It’s very well done.  There’s even a nice bit at the end declaring the laws will be defied, and its only purpose will be making criminals out of people like his father, which is, of course, the idea.

The latest surge in gun sales is because the economy is in the crapper.  It has nothing to do with voters electing a guy who advocates banning guns.  No, nothing at all.  But hey, I’ll give them credit — at the very end of the article they do mention:

Sales of guns and ammunition are up 8 to 10 percent this year, according to state and federal records, fueled in part by fears that the incoming Democratic administration might tighten restrictions on gun sales. But some new gun owners — crowding instruction classes and local ranges — are also worried about rising crime, according to Nan Sanders, a retiree and shooting instructor from Vienna.

I don’t doubt the economy is driving some of it, but November gun figures were much higher than October, figures, and October is where the economy was at its most volatile.  Meanwhile, the media is still abuzz about the gun sale issue.  A few of those also cite other factors, which I think is accurate, but are pretty up front with Obama being a prime driver of sales.

Reading, Pennsylvania has passed its own Lost and Stolen ordinance, in addition now to Philadelphia, Allentown, Pottsville, York, and Pittsburgh, in defiance of statewide preemption.

Making a straw purchase of a gun already is a violation of Pennsylvania law, but it is a difficult law to enforce because it is nearly impossible to prove that a buyer obtained a weapon for someone who is not permitted to have one.

The reporting law is much easier to enforce. A gun is seized by police after the commission of a crime and traced back to the original buyer, who either reported it missing or faces some difficult questions from police and prosecutors.

So the media freely admits this law is means to lower the states burden of proof.  Anyone who fails to report is automatically assumed to be guilty of straw purchasing, rather than someone who might now have known about the law, or who might not have discovered the gun had gone missing, or in the midst of a stressful burglary investigation, forgot to mention it to police.  We are going to have a hell of a fight on our hands this legislative session to keep a lid on this, but we must.  The state doesn’t get to deal with this issue by making assumptions of guilt.  This is not how a free society is supposed to operate, and it’s a shame the media isn’t reporting this side of the story.

So says the Brady Campaign:

“In this season of hope, however, we should not despair and say this kind of violence is inevitable. We should not tolerate the steady drumbeat of gun deaths and injuries that tears our families and communities apart. We can and should do all that is within our power to find solutions to gun violence.

“In the New Year, we hope that our nation’s leaders have the courage and conviction to take steps that will help protect our families and communities from gun violence.”

How?  This guy lived in California, which is the Brady #1 rated state for gun laws.  If the “reasonable” laws they advocate that every state should have were so effective, how did this happen in the first place?  You can’t make laws to stop all evil acts.

I found this interesting that hunters in England are changing their dress to avoid being noticed.

The huntsman’s red coat – a totemic image of hunting for more than 200 years – is one of the main casualties of the sport since the hunting ban came into force four years ago.

Many hunts have decided to abandon their scarlet (known as pink) jackets in favour of tweed or dark coats in an attempt to be less conspicuous and avoid scrutiny. …

Fear of harassment and malicious prosecution from activists have made hunts significantly more covert. Many no longer publicise the dates, times and venues for meets on websites or even post notices in a village pub or community centre.

Apparently, many clubs will go back to using red coats if the hunting ban is ever repealed.

Will it be repealed?  That’s hard to say.  Obviously, I’m not on the ground to be able to judge the political climate on the issue, but the hunt clubs seem to have some hope.  However, the anti-hunting forces claim public opinion is on their side.  Given that they cite a poll they funded, it’s hard to say how accurate it may be.

Having never shot any kind of practical rifle before, I got up this morning to go try out one of Langhorne Rod and Gun Club’s practical rifle matches.  LGRC holds practical rifle shoots once every month, but this match was the one Kalashnikov match they hold each year in December.  I haven’t fired my Kalashnikov beyond 25 yards since GBR, October of 2007, and I shot like it.  Not good.  Had no idea even honestly where my site settings were.  Next time I go, I will make sure I have time to check my shit before walking on to the range and shooting a match.

But any day you get to spend sending hot lead downrange, particularly at steel, is a good day.  LRGC runs a fun, safe, no-pressure match.  They are very welcoming to first time shooters, and everyone there seems to have a good time.  Ran into Dave Markowitz of the Blog O’ Stuff, and was glad to meet him.  Here are our pictures for the day.  I commented in the pictures to give people an idea of what goes on in a practical rifle match, in case they are thinking about attending one (which I would highly recommend).  The pics of me were taken by Dave.

Who says AKs have no sporting purpose!

UPDATE: More pics up over at Blog o’ Stuff.

The Brady Campaign seems to be really eagar to tout their involvement on the Melanie Hain case on the side of the Lebanon County Sheriff.  I agreed with the suit to get her License to Carry reinstated.  I might even agree with some form of civil rights suit.  The problem is, I just can’t agree with this particular suit.  I think the Brady’s see an easy opportunity to add a feather to their hat here, and unfortunatly, think it’s likely they will get what they want out of this situation.

UPDATE: A recent interview here:

Q: How do you feel about the Brady Center becoming involved?

A: They offered some aid to the county, but to my knowledge, neither the county nor the sheriff have taken them up on that, so it would seem to me they are just sitting on the sidelines drooling in hopes that they do get the go-ahead to handle things.

I would not be surprised if this is the case, but Bradys’ eagerness to get involved should say something.  They are not stupid.  For the better part of two decades they, in their several incarnations, had us on the defensive.  What the Bradys probably don’t realize here is that it would be problematic for the Sheriff to work openly with them in the part of Pennsylvania he’s in.  But they are eagar to define this struggle on their terms regardless.

The Newbie Shooter is now officially southern.