A Pox On America?

That's what the editorial staff at the West Virginia Gazette seem to think.

See if you can follow this line of thinking...Chicago, IL and Toronto, CA are roughly the same size. Yet one of these cities has a horrendous homicide problem. So the answer to said problem is to adopt the gun laws of the other city.

An interesting question arises: The city they would like to emulate more actually has less restrictive laws than the other.

After you wade through the whole 'Chicago vs Toronto' thing, we get to the crux of their issue: Them danged old American gun laws. See, if we had gun control laws like they do in Europe we wouldn't have...Oh wait. That happened in Norway. What about...Nope it happened in Finland, too. Germany? Nuh-uh. It happened in Germany. (I would bring up Japan, but that's a category all its own: Samurai Sword violence. Not really apropos to our discussion here.) All countries the anti-freedom crowd thinks we should emulate when it comes to OUR gun laws.

They then seem to be taken aback that the foundation of the modern pro-rights arguement can be traced back to the Radical Black Panters of the late '60s, and that the seemingly pro-gun NRA was very much anti gun when it wanted to be back in the '20s and '30s. (And even in the '60s. GCA 68 anyone? The NRA has had its hand in all the major gun control legislation in the last hundred years. It's only in the last 20-30 yrs that they have begun to take on the very legislation they themselves supported.)

They even get apoplectic when they find out that Martin Luther King, Jr applied for a carry permit (though he was denied). I bet what they DIDN'T know was that the good Reverend surrounded himself with a group dedicated to the defense of black people all over the South. Some of you may have heard of them, the Deacons For Defense. While Dr. King talked about non-violence, he had at his side good men who were not afraid to use a little to defend their cause.

It's always fun to see the anti-freedom crowd have their nifty little world view smashed like candy glass. That the narrative they've worked so long and hard to craft comes crashing down around their ears is a good thing, even if it is only for a split second. For we all know that nothing, absolutely NOTHING, can intrude on the narrative, not even those pesky little facts.

A Little Soul Searching

With all the hoopla over what happened yesterday at Ft Hood, I've held off commenting on the incident out of respect for the families of those who were casualties of the shooting.

But the more I read about it, the more I can't help but wonder why this doesn't happen more often. I mean every US military installation in the world is a "gun free zone". The only people who are allowed to 'carry' weapons on base (besides the base cops [civilian and contractor] and resident OSI/CID/NCIS special agents) are those who live in base housing, and only then they are allowed to 'carry' it from their house on base to the range or wherever they're taking the weapon and back. There is no concealed carry on base. Did I mention that everyone who lives on base must resgister their weapons with the base?

I found this out the hard way as one time I was going on base and had forgotten to remove my regular concealed carry piece from under the drivers seat of my truck. As luck would have it, I got stopped at the gate for a random vehicle search, and they found it for me. When I handed them my CCP, I was politely, but tersely told that my permit was not valid on base.

Now, I can bring a firearm on base, but it must be unloaded, cased, and the ammunition cannot be stored close to the weapon in question. Which kind of negates the whole defensive firearm aspect of concealed carry, don't you think?.

My initial reaction to what I was told was not for my defense while on base, but for the time I spend commuting to and from the base. I make a couple of stops coming and going from base and it's at these locations that I get nervous about not having my carry piece on me. I never dreamed (although I should have) that I may need it on base. This whole mess has me rethinking my threat-based decision-making paradigm.

That's not to say I haven't done it in the past. I teach foreign weapons familiarization and when transporting $25k worth of firearms, I'm not going to do it unarmed. It's the same mindset that goes with transporting military arms. When you have so many, the courier must be armed. I'm the same way. There's no way I'm going to give up $25k worth of firearms without a fight, I don't care who you are.

So this has me thinking, just how far do I want to push the issue?

Gotta Love That PayPal

Seems the ijits over at PayPal shut down the donations of a non-profit veterans website the other day over an on-line raffle to support Project Valor-IT which gives voice actuated laptops to injured and disabled troops.

Gotta love PayPal.

Political Correctness Run Amok

Via David Codrea and the Gun Rights Examiner, we come across this little gem:

http://http//www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m2d6-The-new-blacklist

Seems a teacher in WI had picture of herself on Facebook holding a *gasp* gun. This is what happens when you let peoples emotions run amok. If you can be suspended for something as innocent as owning a gun, imagine what else they can let you go over.

Update: Seems as though the school thought she may pose a danger to others. It's not like she was molesting students or something.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m2d6-The-new-blacklistpart-two