Tag...You're It!

In the wake of the Zimmerman Trial, one word has been thrown out so much it almost doesn't matter anymore.  What you see below started out as a comment to a piece by Thomas Sowell that appeared on last week's editorial page in the Rapid City Journal.  For some reason, the filter on the comments wouldn't allow it, something about it being profane.  So instead, I'll post it hear.

The use of the term 'racist' has been cheapened in the last 5 yrs to the point it's almost pathetic.  I can remember a time in the not-so-distant-past where to be called a racist was a death knell for one's professional career and livelihood and was the proverbial 'scarlet letter' that haunted you for the rest of your days.  Even in the wake of the Paula Dean 'scandal', I wasn't really sure what to make of it.  Everyone screams 'Racist' now.  How do you know if what you're dealing with is actual, you know, Racism? 

David Duke was a racist.  Bull Connor was a racist.  George Wallace was a racist.  Grandma down the street who wants to keep her health care and wants to keep out those who have not come to this country through legal means is now suddenly a racist.  If you believe in the founding principles of this country that the government is supposed to be seen and not heard, you're now a racist.

Not any more.  Any disagreement with a protected minority leads to charges of racism, whether there is any proof of said injustice or not.  Disagree with Dear Leader?  Because Racist!  Disagree with Sharpton/Jackson/et al?  Why, you're a no-good Racist!  Want to discuss actual border security, and not the theater act currently playing the part?  RACIST!  RACIST!  RACIST! 

My personal favorites are if you have a friend of color, you do so because you're a closet racist.  And we can't forget the secret code words that liberals love to ascribe to conservatives like...socialist, or communist, or Chicago, or any other word that gets anointed as such by the slobbering boogereaters over on BSNBC.

Wolf.  That's exactly what the word has become.  Same thing has happened to words like 'nazi' and 'fascist', and is quickly happening to 'communist' and 'socialist'.  People hear them now, they simply shrug their shoulders and move on.

It's become almost a version of Godwin's Law, just replace the word 'nazi' with 'racist'.

QOTD - Me

So I've been following the George Zimmerman thing rather loosely.  I admit, I didn't sit glued to the TV watching every waking second of the trial, but then again, I didn't have to.  This case has been so much a part of the last 18 months, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn't heard of it some way, shape, or form.

Now, thanks to Kevin Baker over at The Smallest Minority, I've started reading Thomas Sowell's columns as they appear in my local catbox liner. 

This last week's column was about the Zimmerman case, and Mr. Sowell opined about it.

Evidently, one commentor  to the column didn't much care for his commentary, so he opined:

Yes Mr. Sowell, "this is still America", where like decades and centuries before it still legal to racially profile, stalk, confront, and murder a young black man barely into his 17th year.

Yes Mr. Sowell, "this is still America" where we honor our First Amendment Right and the Freedom of Speech, this freedom also extends to the President, even if he is black

While many people were shocked by the not guilty verdict, I wasn't. There are those that say this case should never have come to trial and I agree with them to a certain degree. This case should never have seen a courtroom because the state of Florida did not want to win it as proven by their shoddy prosecution. Given the facts as we know them, Zimmerman should have been convicted of 2nd degree murder.

All that this trial has proven is that racist murderers enjoy more rights and freedoms than young black teenagers. Conservatives often lament that criminals have to many rights, Zimmerman and his attorneys have proven it to be true.

"Stand Your Ground" should be changed to "Get Out of Jail Free"!

So, I had to pipe in:

You do realize Thomas Sowell is black, right? And that he's 83 yrs old?

He's probably seen more real racism in his life than anyone on these forums, who mostly call racism like Dug hollers 'Squirrel' in the movie 'Up'. 

I think I'll listen to him in these matters over others.

 

Being A Judge Doesn't Necessarily Mean You're Smart

I've held off on commenting on the Zimmerman/Martin thing because we don't have all the facts in evidence yet. And I don't know that we ever will.

But that hasn't stopped the anti-gun folks, the media, and the criminally stupid (redundancy alert!) from trying to blame the law, the gun, and the NRA (not in any particular order) for what happened in Sanford, FL.

Case in point, is Judge H. Lee Sarokin over at the Huffington Post. His piece, titled How Do Gun Advocates, and the NRA React to Gun Massacres and Killings? asks just what the title implies. How can I, as a Life Member of the NRA and an avid gun collector and shooter reconcile what he sees as my complicity in mass shootings around the country.

First off, let me answer the overarching question asked in the title. I react the same way most everyone else does. Usually with empathy for the family members of those lost and sadness at said loss. That feeling is usually short-lived as I know, having payed attention to the news, that within a matter of minutes to hours the usual suspects in the anti-gun movement will be out screaming from the tallest roof in the country about 'lax gun laws' and how the evil NRA is responsible for this tragedy or that.

After reading about how this is all my fault for anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of years, my thoughts then turn to the process itself. Much like the Zimmerman/Martin case, I need facts to make up my mind, keeping in mind that news stations, papers, and Internet sites generally have but a fraction of the information (or none at all) concerning the incident they're breathlessly pimping on their respective forms of communication.

So having read the good Judge's piece, one thing struck me as so totally moronic, that it made my brain come to a screeching halt. The Judge actually wrote that without guns, there would be no killing. Seriously. A Judge said that, I'm not making it up. See for yourself, he says it in the second paragraph under the excerpted text. Quote "I know the slogan - 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people', but without a gun present there would be no killing." No sir, I think you've got that all wrong. Without a gun present, there most definitely would be killing. People have been doing so for millenia, with all manner of implements that they have either devised or found handy at the time.

And speaking of 'gun massacres', that shooting the other day...Where did that happen again? Oh, yeah. Oakland. In CA, the poster child for everything the Brady Campaign to Remain Relevant wants for state gun laws. Yet with all those nifty little laws on the books in Cali, a deranged nut job walked into a school with a gun (federal felony-Federal Gun-Free School Zone Act) and killed 7 people (state level felony-murder, the last time I checked, was against the law). I'm not sure if he was prohibited from having said gun, but if he were say a convicted felon or someone adjudicated as mentally defective those would be federal disqualifiers to gun ownership and also felonies for being in possession of gun. I'm also guessing he didn't have a permit from the county sherrif to carry said guns on campus, so he was likely carrying without a permit, also a crime in CA. Since I haven't heard what weaponry he used, I can't comment on whether they were "California Approved!" or not.

So in that one incident we have several state and federal laws being broken. Tell me again why 'one more law' would've stopped this?

I've Got Another Idea

These are the types of columns that really have me scratching my head. The 'I'm a gun owner, but...' article.

We've all read them before. Usually, they all start out with 'I'm a gun owner, I support the second amendment, but...' and then dive into why THEIR gun is wholesome, good and righteous and how everyone elses guns are bad, evil, and destined to be the cause of the next massacre at the corner market.

This one has so much wrong with it, it's really hard to know where to begin. And then there's the last commenter. I'm not sure if what the person is writing is true or satire. I certainly hope it's satire, as the other option is downright scary.

That these two individuals are so flippant about one the most basic of fundamental rights is a testament to how far some will go to see the rest of their countrymen and neighbors left defenseless in the face of criminals and what, at least on the surface anyway, appears to be a growingly Constitutionally hostile government.

For those two, I say bring it. Or in the case of King Leonidas of Sparta, Molon Labe. And to quote Mike Vanderbough, if you try to take our firearms away, we will kill you.

This Is Interesting...

I've read op-eds from around the country related to the gun issue. Almost universally, they are against everything gun related. From semi-auto rifles, to concealed carry, to purchase requirements. It's a gimmee.

That is until today. The local cat box liner had an editorial today, coming out....

In FAVOR of Constitutional Carry in the state of South Dakota.

You know, when I got out of bed this morning, things felt a little weird. Now I now what set the world all helter-skelter.

The Stupid Is Strong

I don't know what rock this twit crawled out from under, but the only reason why you 'couldn't own AK 47s or 50 caliber handguns that have no purpose but to kill people' is because when you were 'remembering', those items weren't available for import.

Never mind that FALs were being imported in the 1950s. Dammit, those guns weren't in the country back then, so we need to go back to that time.

I've got a news flash. If they had been available back in 1949 when they went into active service with the Soviet Army, someone would have found a way to import them.

In another burst of brilliance, he bemoans the existence of .50 caliber handguns. Another news flash: .50 caliber handguns have been around for a long time. Here's a picture gallery of some (of course being a search engine, there's going to be some that don't quite fit the bill of .50+ caliber handguns) percussion cap and flintlock pistols in .54 caliber.

But then again, when it comes to hysterical rantings of a self-absorbed moron, never let the facts (or even a little thing like an Internet search) get in the way of a good tirade.

I guess he never heard the quote from Tench Coxe:

'The militia of these commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared to any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.'

The Blame Is Strong In This One...

Huh. So an Executive Agency in the government decides it wants to push a meme about US guns fueling Mexico's violent crime problem, can't get the corroborating trace data to support such claims, and resorts to taking the matters into their own hands.

And it's all the NRA's fault.

What we know for sure at this point. (Obviously abridged, since to try and capture the entire timeline here would take up wayyyyy to much space. You can check out the Gunwalker time line at the National Gun Rights Examiner, here.) The ATF forced multiple gun dealers in Arizona to sell guns (2000 plus at this point, it could be more) to people those merchants knew were straw buyers, but were told point blank by the ATF to sell to anyway.

Those buyers were surveilled and were NOT interdicted before their purchases were turned over to gun runners. As a result, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a fire fight with gun runners in Dec 2010. Found at the scene were two guns traced to Operation Fast and Furious. Another federal agent, Jaime Zapata, was killed in Mexico with a gun linked to a similar operation in Texas.

We have senior Justice Dept officials on record as using the results of this operation as a justification for the border states rule on multiple sales of long guns.

But all this is the NRA's fault? Really?

As Ron White would say, I don't think so, Scooter.

I Saw That Flick!

So the folks over at the CSGV have got their knickers in a knot over gun sales numbers. As usual, Thirdpower has been all over this like a fat kid on a cupcake.

But something ole Josh said in the last couple of lines struck a memory.

Faced with a stagnate customer base that has declined precipitously over the last 35 years-the gun industry has purposely and continuously manufactured firearms for one of its most important market segments: traffickers and prohibited purchasers (i.e. children, criminals, the dangerously mentally ill, domestic abusers, etc.). All in the name of profit.

Ooo! Ooo! Pick me, Pick me! I think I saw that movie. It was supposed to be good movie when it came out, heck it had Col Rhodes and John Cusack in it. Couldn't be all bad, right? Boy was I wrooooonnnnng. This was back before I got my 2A and evil semiautomatic rifle thing going. By the end of the movie, I was so disgusted I threw it away (brand-spanking new DVD chucked in the trash). Which was kind of odd for a John Grisham movie up to that point, he usually had some pretty good flicks.

I think that was the last time the anti-gun movement scored a victory in court. It's also the only way they can win anything at this point, and that is in the world of make believe. (Coincidentally this is also the only place those pie-in-the-sky anti pipe dreams actually work, such as ballistic fingerprinting.) They have nothing left. Trying to pass off the plot of a not-so-great lawyer movie as fact shows just how bankrupt their ideology really is.

Not Sure What To Make Of This

First off, let me say that the reasons for killing Constitutional Carry in the State House were among the most asinine and childish I've ever heard of. C'mon, really? You can't put aside your teenage angst long enough to look at a bill objectively? Sometimes you really have to wonder about the idi...I mean folks that get elected to statewide office.

Anyway, there's been a bunch of talk recently about South Dakota finally cashing in on some that Oil Boom going on in western North Dakota. If you're not aware, the Bakken Oilfield in ND is among the biggest in the world and makes the reserves of the Arabian Peninsula look like a mud puddle.

It seems that the Sheriff up there in Belle Fourche is, not surprisingly, worried about what effects an oil boom would have in his county. I can understand, the whole boom town thing: I was born in the middle of oil boom, and grew to adulthood through 3 different coal booms. His fears are real.

However. I'm not sure what to make of his comments yesterday. In the linked piece, he is discussing the potential negative aspects a boom would have in the area, and the very next line, he says something very troubling. For the life of me, I can't figure out why an increase of women getting concealed carry permits is a bad thing. I'm not sure if he's intimating the increase in permits is bad thing or if the quote is taken out of context.

Me personally? I'm all for the fairer sex having the ability to defend themselves, especially if this boom comes and the assorted riff-raff that accompanies it shows up.

It's Been A Year

12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000. That's how much time has passed since former Marine and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in an ambush by a thug armed with a gun purchased from a Phoenix gun store at the urging the federal agency charged with preventing that very act.

In that time, we've heard all kinds of things around the operation known as Fast and Furious (Gunwalker to the intimately familiar). Things like it was a botched operation, that it got out of control, and that it was a rogue operation. We've heard all manner of excuses from those who support what happened: It was the NRA's fault, it was the fault of the Republican Party for not confirming a permanent director, we even heard it was all George Bush's fault.

We know two gentlemen who have done the heavy lifting and yeoman's work of making sure that we know what we know: Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea If you would like a complete round up on Fast & Furious/Gunwalker, check out David's Examiner site. If you would like a daily play-by-play, check out Mike's place.

What we have found out in the last 12 months is that this operation wasn't botched at all. The objectives of the operation we met with precision, and that supervisors up and down the chain of command in main Justice and the ATF were giddy with excitement at the numbers of victims racked up with weaponry connected with F&F.

One thing that hadn't been put forward in all this blame 'x', is the race card. Until now. The Tuscon Citizen posits that all this hubub is really a racist attack on Messicans and black people. Why else would those evil racist Republicans be going after Eric Holder? I mean, it has to be because he's black, right? It can't be because he's the most incompetent person to hold the post of Attorney General at all. Nope, that can't be it.

And just to make sure we get this all tied in together, let's throw in obligatory references SB 1070 and go after a local Congressman who's part of the process to get the incompetent ass who's in charge of this circle-jerk thrown out of office, by accusing him of racism as part of a great big racist conspiracy to get Eric Holder.

I don't think I've seen that much left-wing hate in one piece since, well, the last time I tried to watch MSLSD. But it absolutely amazes me still that for a group that touts itself to be so 'tolerant', they sure tend to be pretty bigoted and intolerant themselves.

Just so we're clear here: Agent Terry, RIP.

The PSH Is Strong In This One

Last week there was a shooting down on Bourbon Street in N'Alens. The smoke has cleared, the blood, while not completely dry, is tacky, and the press is all over the issue.

It's almost a typical hit piece. Quote from an anti-gun organization? Check. Reference MAIG? Check. Drag the ATF into the piece? Got it. Get any quotes or statements from the NRA or similar organization? Not a chance.

Of course, it wouldn't be a hit piece without the usual distortions, half-truths, and outright lies.

So, a scumbag shoots a bunch of people. That he did so doesn't register on their agenda. That he used a handgun that can accept a high capacity magazine, well that just ain't right. I would like to see one of these 50 or 100 rd mags for a handgun. Leaving aside the AK-type pistols that take all the standard mags that come with the platform (yes, that includes the 75 and 100 rd drums), I wonder just what a 100 rd mag for a Glock 17 looks like?

We get into the lies when we mistakenly represent the 1994 AWB as 'outlawing' them is such a blatant lie it bears correcting. The '94 ban did not outlaw anything. It simply placed manufacture and import restrictions on new ones. 33 rd Glock mags were readily available on Sep 15, 1994 (the day after the ban went into effect), and were still prevalent on Sep 13, 2004 (the day before it sunset). What changed was cost.

So, after all that, we get to the crux of the article. It's a puff piece for Mayors Against (All) Illegal Guns. They're pushing their 10 ways to screw private gun ownership.

They are:

1. Allow criminal penalties for buying a gun for someone else.

(Already a federal crime. It's called 'straw buying' and is punishable by up to 10 yrs in Club Fed.)
2. Allow criminal penalties for buying a gun with false information.

(See #1, above.)

3. Allow criminal penalties for selling a gun without a background check.

(There is absolutely no way to enforce this. You can no more make people go through the NICS check for a private sale than you can a felon. Oh wait. I forgot. The 5th amendment protects felons from this little gem because that would incriminate them. Silly me.)

4. Require background checks for all handgun sales at gun shows.

(Since they don't mention abolishing private sales, I can only surmise that after all the 'stings' they did over the last couple of years, they didn't learn anything. All licensed dealers do background checks, regardless of where they set up, whether it's at a table at the gun show or behind the counter at the store.)

5. Require purchase permit for all handgun sales.

(Three words: Cold Dead Hands.)

6. Grant law enforcement discretion in granting concealed carry permits.

(And this has worked out soooo well in NYFC, LA, SF, and Newark, NJ hasn't it. Are you famous? Are you politically connected? Know somebody who can hook you up? If you answered no, then you're screwed. Just ask the residents of those cities who have verifiable need to CCW and have been denied how that's working out for them.)

7. Prohibit violent misdemeanor criminals form possessing guns.

(What is a violent misdemeanor? Jimmy and Bob get into a dust over Cindy-Lou at closing time? Or is it K-Dog who beat Old Man Smith half to death for his pension check. Misdemeanors are just that. Not as bad as felonies. Now if that misdemeanor carried a sentence of one year or greater in the city/county slammer, I've got a newsflash for you. Disqualified. Funny thing about them federal gun laws. They seem to cover that one just like they did in items 1 and 2.)

8. Require reporting lost or stolen guns to the police.

(Hmmm, this one is interesting. These laws have been on the books in several cities for a few years now, and I can't seem to find any reports where this has actually worked, let alone been used to prosecute anyone. Can you say solution desperately in search of a problem?)

9. Allow local communities to enact gun control.

(Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. First you've got McDonald, then you have those pesky state preemption laws that don't really allow for that kind of thing.)

10. Allow inspections of gun dealers.

(This one is interesting. The ATF usually inspects them. Probably not as often as these fools would like, but they do get looked at. Just ask Red's Trading Post. Or are they thinking about the morons who work for Furious Mike who know nothing about guns, stores, or both trying to tell these guys how to run their business?)

I guess the bottom line question I've got to ask the MAIG folks is this. Since you've recommended all these little wish lists, just how is this going to help? I mean, if you're trying to stem the flow of illegal guns (and not ban them or nothing), just how does this help? Just looking at the biggest gun running operation in the last, I don't know, 50 yrs, [cough...Operation Fast and Furious...cough] all the dealers involved tried to call off the sales, and yet our own government overruled the better judgement of the proprietors. Funny how all the legislation in the world won't help when the Gun Cops tell you not to enforce them.

The more I think about this, the more it comes down to trying to be a mouthpiece for something that is on the cusp of becoming irrelevant.

I Think They May Finally Be Getting It...

That gun control in it's basest form is racist.

That BET would give this piece space is telling. Our side is winning, and JFPO is starting to have an impact. It ain't every day that a piece talking about gun controls angry, racist past gets to appear there.

It starts out good, acknowledging the role the Klan had in making sure negroes stayed disarmed, even mentioning that Dr. King applied for a permit. I think he could have brought up the Deacons for Defense, though. I find it interesting that when the Deacons were around, the Klan wasn't.

The author gets going really good, only to loose it in the end with "And one has to consider whether winning the right to carry handguns everywhere was really that wonderful a victory."

Just when you think the lamp will finally light in this guy's head, it gets brushed aside as quickly as it occurred.

What Part of No Don't They Understand?

Via a link from WoG, comes this little gem from Mercury news.

Setting aside the other obvious BS spouted by the author of this piece, I would like to focus on one part, the quote David used in his post:

"Gun Rights Activists did not immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment."

They didn't call David, or anyone else for that matter, and I'm pretty sure I'm so low on their list of names to call for a comment that I don't really matter much to them, but I'll give it a try anyway.

No. Nyet. Nada. Nein. Non. Mei. Nai. Uh-Uh.

For too many years, gun owners have been portrayed as knuckle dragging neanderthal hick hayseeds. For over 70 years we have given ground to a group whose sole idea of compromise is to give them everything they want in order to save, well something.

We hear things like compromise and common sense, all the while being portrayed as blood thirsty, willing to kill old people and babies to satiate our blood lust.

We gave in 1934, in order to pass the first real federal gun control act, to make sure that possession of certain types of vilified guns and accessories like a Thompson, or short-barrelled rifle/shotguns, and suppressors were made taboo and only available to the wealthy.

We gave in 1968, while more of our freedom and liberty were sacrificed in order to keep the Sirhan Sirhans and protesters of the day from getting their hands on weaponry. We stood by while easily affordable firearms were deemed too cheap to possess, while a petty tyrant sitting in a cushy office in a far away building decided for us what was 'sporting' and what wasn't with the stroke of a pen.

Even in our victories we've seen defeat. A bill to protect gun owners from an out of control bureaucracy (seems something never change, do they?) we got the shaft again, this time by a still controversial amendment that banned future manufacture of fully automatic weapons thus ensuring that only the truly wealthy can afford them.

We stood by in 1993 and 1994 while tragedy after tragedy was laid at our feet and more restrictions were placed upon us. Magazine capacity bans. Bans on cosmetic features. Bans on names. None of this did anything to stem the tragedies, but it made the hanky-wringers happy. We could debate the effectiveness of this particular law all day long, but the long and the short of it is it didn't work. It didn't ban anything. Weapons specifically named under the ban were still available, only they had different names and offending features such as bayonet lugs and threaded barrels were removed. Standard capacity mags that were readily available before 14 Sep 1994 were still available after 14 Sep 1994, they just cost a little more.

The only bone thrown to us in this mess was a sunset clause. 10 years, if left alone, this law would disappear. It was a contentious issue, a president who touted his NRA creds baffled gun owners by saying that if the extension came to his desk, he would sign it. When that law failed to garner the support it needed, I cheered. And I waited. I got my first no-ban gun a month after the sunset.

In those 7 years and change since that law sunsetted, crimes committed with sport utility rifles, and other weapons with standard capacity magazines have not gone through the roof. The only thing that has gone up is the media hysteria over such crimes when the do occur.

The Virginia Tech shooter didn't need extended mags. He needed the standard capacity mags that came with his gun, because he had time to reload. The Tuscon shooter stupidly used a 33 rd magazine used by competition shooters and hobbyists that is known to jam, thinking he could do a lot of damage. He did some, but because his weapon jammed, because he was using a magazine known to do so, he was able to be subdued by bystanders.

So, mister editorialist, I leave you with these questions. What exactly is a 'high capacity magazine'? I mean, I have rifles whose standard capacity is between 4 rds and 100. There are belt fed guns, perfectly legal for us mere peons to own, that take belts of 5 rds up to 250 or more. I have had pistols whose standard capacity is anywhere from 6 to 19 rds.

If, as you all like to claim, no one needs these magazines, and that possession of same is evidence of a desire to kill as many people as possible, then why on earth do the police need them? Are they somehow protected from the urge to kill large swathes of people by the magical talisman on their shirt? Are they imparted with some power during training at the Police Academy that wards off this urge, this desire?

What say you, Mister Gun Grabber?

At Least They Ain't Hiding It Anymore

Doing another run around Google News today, and came across this nifty little report from Homeland Security Today about how to deal with the narco-terrorists and gunrunning operations in Mexico. While most of the report deals with policy tools for dealing with the drug part of the problem, what caught my attention was the proposals regarding guns. From the HS Today:

To increase to control gun smuggling from the United States to Mexico, federal agencies should establish "registration requirements for large-volume ammunition purchases and unassembled assault weapons kit imports", the report said, as well as reporting requirements for multiple long-arms purchases.

It further goes on to state:

The United States must provide more resources to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the primary agency charged with stopping arms trafficking, the report said, providing it with the capacity to investigate gun purchasing plots.

Furthermore:

The federal government should contemplate a ban on assault weapons and sniper rifles (emphasis mine) as such bans "have proved successful at the state level", the report suggested. Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies must break down barriers to sharing information on gun crime data.

Leaving aside the gun trafficking issue for just a moment, this is a new, but not surprising twist in the campaign to ban guns. Before, we had the obligatory calls to ban assault weapons after every high profile shooting, whether they involved a so-called scary looking semi automatic rifle or not. We even had folks talking about using the '94 Scary Gun ban as a jumping off point to de-sensitize the public into going after other classes of boogey-man guns. The new wrinkle is the 'sniper rifle' bit. I would hazard a guess that the 20 lb brains that who wrote this probably didn't know that by using sniper rifle, they were REALLY talking about scoped bolt action rifles in calibers of .30 and up. You know, that favorite deer, elk, moose, or cape buffalo rifle in the average hunters gun safe. One would think, but I doubt it. It's a well known fact that THE hallmark of America is our marksmanship. Most of our Armed Forces are well trained in marksmanship principles even before they join up. So this little Freudian slip about sniper rifles isn't as innocuous as it seems. The other troubling thing about this report is the belief that we should give even more power and funding to a federal agency that, according to reports, has done more to arm the narco-terrorists than any gun-running operation could have hoped to accomplish. Evidently, they either haven't been following what's been going on with Project Gunwalker, or they are ignoring it all together. (My money is on the latter, personally.) For more on the Gunwalker scandal, Mike V over at Sispsey Street has all the tools, here, here, here, and here. And Michelle Malkin has a comprehensive round up of all the reporting to date, here.

Stand Up To A Bigot

I was going to post this as a response to this...I don't know what you'd call it, but I thought I'd drop it here. I may also post this as a response, but for now, I'm going to post it here.

A funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. Guns got invented. That genie is now out of the bottle, and it ain't going back in. If you think that by banning guns all the ills of our society would go away, you are in dire need of some counselling. You cannot un-invent something, and you cannot make people forget the know-how to create it. Just because guns are banned, doesn't mean there won't be guns. In Chechnya for example, homemade guns abound. And not semi-auto guns. Full on, full bore, full auto machine guns. So you have to ask yourself this question. Would I rather deal with legal semi-auto firearms in the hands of law-biding citizens, or would you rather deal with backyard machinists cranking out Sten-type submachine guns for a group of angry partisans?

For those that think a few 'peasants' with spitballs couldn't possibly stand up to the best trained, best equipped, and most battle hardened army in the world, you don't know history, or current events, for that matter.

Our own history as a nation started out with a rag-tag band of patriots picking a fight with the most powerful army in the world. (I wonder how that one turned out?) A rag-tag bunch of settlers took on the second most powerful army in the western hemisphere in the 1830s. (Texas, anyone?) More recently, a rag-tag bunch of en-educated peasants took on the US Army, and WON! ( I can't remember what country that was, but the little guys wore black pajamas.) For the last 10 yrs or so, a rag-tag bunch of peasants has been kicking the largest army in the worlds' kiester. (Vladdy, phone please!) And lets not forget that rag-tag bunch of goat herders has been giving the most technologically advanced military the world has ever known absolute fits.

Now, as for registration, licensing, and means testing for a specific enumerated right, we wouldn't put up with someone telling us we had to have a permit and a background check to buy the latest Danielle Steele slobber book, nor would we put up with someone having us register and ask permission to go to church on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, or any other day of the week. As a country, we abolished testing as a means of exercising the most fundamental right of any American, the right to vote. So why, in all that's right and holy, would we subject ourselves to registering that which our country was founded on? We have the right to be secure in our homes and papers. Why would we give up the means to that security?

So, we don't put prior restraints on civil rights. Same goes for our Second Amendment rights. That states currently use a permit system means it is nothing more than a revenue system to add even more money into the states coffers. No one should have to beg the government to exercise their rights, and we rightly don't put up with that in any other context.

That you (meaning antis) don't trust others with something like a gun tells me you don't trust anyone. Which is kind of ironic, don't you think? You probably drive a car or truck that weighs in excess of 3000 lbs. You probably drive in congested traffic, and trust those around you to not run into you. Much hay has been made about the number of people killed by guns, but what is the real, true killer in this country? That distinction falls to the automobile. It's been killing people in this country at rates that are truly astounding. Yet we don't blame Ford or Toyota when someone crosses the center line and plows into a crowd of school kids getting ready to catch the school bus. Nor do we blame Jack Daniels, Budweiser, or Zima when someone gets mind numbingly drunk and plows into the local senior citizens center. We don't investigate what caused the drunk to do what he did. We don't go blaming the radio station, we don't make excuses and try to blame everyone else but the individual for the carnage. We arrest them, charge them, try them, incarcerate them, and in the most extreme cases take their life. And nobody cares that he heard voices, his girlfriend left him, his dog died, or he caught his wife sleeping with the Maytag man. We condemn the individual, not the tool used to commit the carnage.

My point in all this? Law-biding gun owners are NOT the problem. Lawfully owned, lawfully carried firearms are NOT the problem. Criminals ARE. People who, by their very nature cannot be made to register any guns they have, as to do this violates THEIR fifth amendment right against self incrimination. Passing new, onerous gun laws will not do anything to stop murderers from plying their trade. It will however, ensure a large swath of the citizenry won't be able to do anything but sit back and take it.

Pisses Me Off

What really pisses me off are these letters and articles in newspapers around the country written by supposed gunowners. They all start off the same:

"I'm a gunowner, but I don't support..."

This statement is usually followed up by inserting whatever politically sensitive firearm is on the hotseat that particular week. It could be Glock, it could be DPMS or Colt. Or it could be an accessory that is on the block, such as standard capacity magazines.

Take, for instance, a commenter named 'Boo Hoo' over here.

Typical 'I'm a gunowner, but..." response. I own guns but I don't see the need for anyone to carry one. I own guns but I don't see the need for a gun with a magazine capacity of more than x rounds. I'm a gunowner, but I don't see why anybody would need (insert politically incorrect firearm reference here) for hunting, self defense, ad nauseum.

I'll tell you what we don't need. What we DON'T need is some jagoff speaking about crap he/she willfully knows nothing about. We don't need one 'gunowner' out of 80,000,000 trying to put the rest of us in a neat little box.

One thing he mentioned in his comment to the linked story (which was about the Brady Bunch picketing an open carry meeting, go figure, huh?) was that without a gun, the nutjob in Tuscon wouldn't have been able to kill 6 and wound 20. I got a news flash for him. 19 guys with box cutters took out 3000 10 yrs ago. A whackjob with a Ryder truck, some fertilizer, and some diesel fuel killed 168 in 1995. Nutjobs half a world away are killing that many and more with a rudimentary understanding of chemistry, some nails and ball bearings, and cell phone. Is he really that dense to think that mass killing in this country would magically disappear overnight if we could just get rid of those icky guns?

I got an idea. If you feel the need to post one of them "I'm a gunowner, but..." pieces in you local cat box liner, do us all a favor.

Keep your 'butt' out of it.

All This Talk Of Bans and Whatnot

In the wake of the shooting a couple of weeks ago, debate has raged from all over as to whether our gun laws are too weak or not.

The typical poo flinging monkeys (Josh squared and Paul) have stated that gun shows, magazine capacity, and an inefficient background check system (on top of all the rhetoric the shooter never listened to or heard) were all the reasons a deranged nutjob hell bent on killing the object of his desire needed.

A couple of other bloggers, Joe Huffman and Say Uncle, pointed out that when arguing about gun control with an anti-gunner, their responses pretty much run into the 'F/U' department. In a discussion on a report out of my home state of WY becoming the 4th state to allow Constitutional Carry, the discussion turned to magazine capacity. Several commentors finally got down to the 4 letter word of the problem, need. They argue that no one 'needs' a magazine larger than 10 rds for anything. I did manage to point out that when the conversation turns to 'need' the person making the argument has lost and is showing their intellectual inferiority by doing so. I believe I said 'Your IQ is at room temperature and falling like a stone'.

In this, they are technically correct. But where they fail is that 'need' has nothing to do with it. Almost all of my rifles were designed from the outset to shoot from magazines that hold 30+ rds so I would argue that it's not need, its a requirement. My pistols, not so much. 1911's generally shoot from magazines that hold between 7 and 9 rds, depending.

It reminds me of a silly rule that NASCAR has. In order to slow things down at the superspeedways like Daytona and Talledega, they install a smaller fuel cell. 13 gallons for the super tracks vs. 22 for the rest of the circuit. The reasoning for this is it's supposed to slow the race down by making the cars have to pit for gas more often. They haven't limited the speeds on the track, they've just managed to make it more dangerous for the pit crews, as they have to deal with pitting these cars more often, placing them in harms way on pit road more often.

See any similarities to the debate on magazine capacity? Makes about as much sense, doesn't it.

He's Hit Everything He's Aimed At, Carter

Bonus plug for an obscure western movie reference, that being John Cleese from 'Silverado' commenting on the fact that Danny Glover's character 'Mel', was shooting at a trailing possee not to hurt them, but to scare them away. He also says, after having his hat shot off his noggin, 'Today, my jurisdiction ends HERE!'.

Why do I bring this up? Well, there was an editorial in the Casper Star today talking about how great the One is.

From his 'landmark' health care legislation, to the 'financial reform', everything the One wanted, he got. Or as John Cleese remarked 'He's hit everything he's aimed at, Carter!'

Where I diverge from the letter writer is this. All those pieces of the One's legislative agenda were precisely what pushed the greatest mid-term turnover in over 70 yrs. Over 60 seats in the House of Representin'.

What the letter writer fails to comprehend is that this is not a left-of-center country. We are a center-right bunch who tend to think that the .gov needs to stay in the nifty little boundaries set forth in that 223 yr old piece of parchment commonly referred to as 'The Constitution of The United States', most notably the enumerated powers spelled out in Article 1, Section 8.

No where in this document does it lay out the foundation for the unprecedented power grab seen these last 2 yrs. Even under the most twisted of logic, these grabs don't pass the smell test. Personnal mandates to purchase? Uh-uh. Federal ownership of two car companies? Nope, not there either. Taking over student loans? Sorry, that ain't in there either.

Now, adding 4 million acres to the federal land regsiter? Can't quite see that either, as outside of post offices and military reservations, the USGOV can't own land.

See what these...folks...don't want to admit is, all of the cool little college/univeristy experiments that worked so well in the labs of their progressive icons don't work out so well in the real world. See California, where they're in the hole $40 million per day paying off pension liabilities. Or New York, where they've comtemplated a sugar tax to help pay for all those little entitlement programs that work oh so well.

Nope, they can keep all those little social experiments to themselves, thank you very much.

It's Enough To Piss a Feller Off

Wondering the AlGorian intertubz this afternoon, checking the links on the right side of the page and came across a couple of really egregious stories.

First up we have this little gem via Sispey Street and WoG. Seems that a be-ridden grandmother was tased by an overly aggressive PD down in Oklahoma. That she did not succumb to the torture these imbeciles in blue subjected her to is both a testament to her spirit and a blessing. I'm sure that had she expired from the wounds and treatment inflicted upon her by her captors, it would have been deemed as 'within department protocol'.

Second, we have this from Joe Huffman, video here. Seems an amputee was singled out for 'extra security' at an unnamed airport in Kaliforn-I-A. While not being particularly troublesome before, the numbnuts in TSA got all kinds of cry-baby-pissy-pants when her young son tried to go to Mommy. This, evidently, led to an almost pedophilic moment where the goons from TSA copped a look at the young lads privates to ensure there weren't any 'explosives' hidden in his diaper. (For a bit of irony, it would have been the ultimate irony had the young'un dropped a particularly nasty radioactive load in his Pampers, wouldn't it? Better yet, the supreme irony would've been if he'd done it while being leered at by said baby diddler.)

All this led to a 'rule change' just for her. Not only was she subjected to the humiliation this extra screening brought on, but they potentially could have cost her even more of the limb by exposing her to bacteria and germs that don't go well with amputations.

My bet, is in neither one of these cases will anyone be held to account for their actions. And that, folks, is what has become of the once Great United States. A petty tyrant on every corner.

Telling, Ain't It?

Why, you'd think the anti's over at the Huffington Post had stumbled upon something...incriminating.


Turns out, nosso much. Try as they might, all their arguments are reduced to jokes about the inadequecies of gun owners and putting things in places that are well, better left to others to describe.