You know, I turn back to your ancient prophets, in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if we’re the generation that is going to see it come about.
Ronald Reagan
[I’m reminded of this by the articled titled Iran reportedly able to make nuclear bomb and the fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he wants Israel wiped off the map.–Joe]
The Brady Campaign Blog has a post up about a gun rights activist and concealed carry permit holder. Basically it outlines what a slimy guy he is.
This is new territory for the Brady Campaign.
With so many of us and so few of them simply by the sheer number of people in the “tails of the bell curve” that we don’t to be our “poster children” this could be somewhat painful for us. It turns out they have a few “skeletons in the closet” as well but there isn’t going to be nearly as many of them.
I don’t think that is an appropriate way to play the game. The political battle should be fought over ideas and data rather than the criminal convictions and/or drinking problems of the messengers. But politics is almost never a clean fight.
For us the lesson to be learned is to make sure people that are going to be getting the attention of the press and/or police are people that can stand up to public scrutiny because the Brady people may now have a policy of making sure our activists get more attention than they expected in manner that is less than endearing to the public.
I needed some repair work done on my STI Eagle 5.1 and from my phone call to them I expected to have it back in about 10 days. It arrived at their factory on August 12th. I received it back yesterday. That was exactly 35 days.
I started getting a hint that things weren’t going so well about a week after they got it when I got a call and instead of them telling me it was on it’s way back David told me he had just briefly looked at it and, “that’s a really old gun”. Hmm… And your point is? It turns out there was far more wrong with the gun than I knew and that a lot of things are built different now compared to when the gun was new. That meant some replacement parts weren’t just drop in. They were going to have to do some machining on the frame. Stuff that wasn’t going to be covered under warranty. Fine, give me an estimate and then I’ll decide.
Nearly a week after that on August 31st I had an exact amount and sent David (yes, to him personally rather than STI) a check for $231 for the non-warranty work. He also told me there were things wrong that he couldn’t really fix and but it would still be good enough for “What we down here in Texas call a ‘truck gun'”. Great. My STI is now a “truck gun”. But for $231 I would have functional gun that would be far better than any other gun I could buy for $231.
To be fair the stuff he didn’t want to work on were things that I had long suspected were messed up by the original gunsmith (who shall remain nameless because he is no longer working as a gunsmith anyway) who built it from a kit. Nearly the first thing I did when I got my hands on the gun back in 1998 was check the slide to frame fit when the gun was in battery. I was shocked and disappointed that there was quite a bit of movement. I looked up in surprise and the gunsmith said that he had asked me if I was going to carry the gun or just shoot it in competition. I told him both. So he made the tolerances much greater than a competition only gun. He said that he was taught that a carry gun needed to have looser tolerances so it would be more reliable. I asked if it could be tightened up and he told me that for all practical purposes the answer was no. Rather than rejecting the gun due to a misunderstanding I took it. I really couldn’t complain about the accuracy. It wasn’t what I expected but there were very few stages which I competed in for which the accuracy was a limiting factor.
But that wasn’t the only problem with the gun.
The lugs for the barrel link broke on the original STI barrel after only about 20K rounds. The gunsmith figured it had to be a defective barrel. STI didn’t see it that way and I paid for new, non-STI barrel to be installed. A few years later I told someone else about this and he told me the only way that break occurs is if the barrel was installed wrong. David, at STI, told me the “new” barrel was installed incorrectly as well but it isn’t likely to break–it just doesn’t lock up quite right and the accuracy is degraded.
So, I took the gun to the range tonight and it functioned well. The new safety fits better than the old ones (I had the first gunsmith replace a one that broken once before) ever did but it required some machining on the frame to get the new safety to fit. I’m glad I didn’t try to do it myself because I don’t have access to a milling machine to do the type of cuts that were required–besides not knowing that the frames were built different now and that the frame cuts were required instead of removing material from the safety.
I’m a little annoyed at STI for taking five weeks when I expected something closer to one week. And the non-warranty work being done via a direct payment to David is a little unprofessional. But except for the slide to frame fit everything on the gun looks very good to me. I’ll probably continue to use the gun in competition for quite a while longer. Maybe next summer I’ll be able to justify (money, it’s a lot of money) a new STI (Eagle 5.0 or maybe an Eagle 6.0–any suggestions?) and put this one “behind the seat of the truck”.
Regardless of my irritation with STI I still say–I shoot a STI gun in competition, I carry a STI gun and you should too.
I have an expired Utah license and because it has been expired too long I have to reapply as a new applicant. I’m seriously thinking of taking this Utah Concealed Firearm Permit Class on September 26th.
Anyone else want to show up at the class and hang out with me? It’s just four hours on a Saturday.
Update: I was reminded by Barb that her schedule is changing and I will be in Idaho on this weekend. And with her new schedule none of the Utah classes listed match my schedule.
Bitter and Sebastian (along with the Apex of the Triangle of Death) have been kicking ass and keeping score while going after Bloomberg’s collection of bigots against gun owners.
Here is a letter from another mayor (from Vancouver Washington) to drop out of the group once they realized they had been duped (via WA-CCW email list–Thanks to Dr. Brown for doing the all the work):
Subject: RE: Royce, say it ain’t so!
To: rkba2001@comcast.netDr. Brown,
Please see below my letter of resignation from the Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns coalition that I sent last Friday:
Thank you!
I became a member of Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns based on my belief that this group would help in the fight against criminal gun use. After all, who isn’t for making our communities safer by getting illegal guns off the streets and out of the hands of the wrong people? After careful consideration and after listening to the concerns of many of my constituents I have come to the conclusion that some of your organization’s statements and actions can be construed as infringing on the rights of legitimate gun owners. Because of this, I request that you remove my name from your web site and from your membership lists.
As a lifetime gun owner and user and as a 27-year veteran of the U.S. Army, I strongly value our constitutional right to bear arms and would never support anything that restricts that right. Please know that while I am withdrawing my membership from your organization, I will continue to work with our local law enforcement officials on the problem of criminals illegally obtaining and using guns to commit crimes.
Sincerely,
ROYCE E. POLLARD
Mayor
America’s Vancouver
The headline reads, “Sen. Murray`s Anti-Gun Bigotry Shows in Amtrak Debate, Says CCRKBA.” The news release goes on to say:
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) is once again demonstrating her disdain for gun
owners and their rights by opposing an amendment to her Amtrak funding
legislation that would allow firearms to be carried in baggage aboard trains,
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.“Patty Murray evidently has a short memory span,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan
Gottlieb. “Has she already forgotten what happened to her friend, Seattle Mayor
Greg Nickels, in the primary because of his extremist anti-gun philosophy?
Surely she knows about Tuesday`s primary election results in New York City,
where anti-gunner Richard Aborn came in last in a three-way race for Manhattan
prosecutor by running on his gun control record.”Murray is opposing an amendment, added to her Amtrak bill by Sen. Roger Wicker
(R-MS), that would allow train travelers to transport firearms in their luggage,
provided the guns are declared at check-in and they are locked up for transport.
This is no different than flying with firearms, Gottlieb noted, “and people do
that every day.”“The amendment passed 68-30,” Gottlieb noted, “and Murray`s opposition shows she
is way out of the mainstream on this issue. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid supports the measure. People used to take firearms on trains all the time.
Someone should tell the senator that constitutional rights don`t end at the
Amtrak boarding platform.”Murray argues that the amendment would be too costly and time-consuming, because
Amtrak would have to create a process for checking and tracking guns.“That`s a bogus argument,” Gottlieb countered, “and she knows it. The
Transportation Security Administration already has that process down pat. There
is no need to reinvent the wheel. That option has apparently not occurred to
her, or maybe it has and she just can`t get beyond her narrow gun prohibitionist
viewpoint.“Amtrak has been losing money for years,” Gottlieb concluded. “Maybe it`s
because American gun owners won`t travel with a carrier that treats them like
outcasts. Maybe gun owners will return that sentiment when Murray runs for
re-election next year.”
Although she is considered the one of the “dullest knives in the drawer” (see also here for possible euphemisms) she hasn’t had much trouble getting relected and this vote against gun owners probably won’t be all that detrimental either. But it’s nice to remind her and others that we are not happy with her and if someone else were to be a little more tolerant of diversity we would probably give them our support.
I get this type of email so you don’t have to:
I’m writing looking to connect with those that took any classes with me this past Sunday.
ThreeSomes and Group Sex Play – discussion
Butt Sex – informal discussion
G-Spot and Female Ejaculation – interactive, couples only
In this context one has wonder what the meaning of “connect” is.
Regardless, the answer is “No”. I did not take any of those classes last Sunday. Barb and I were doing other things near Mount Hood (don’t let your dirty mind go there) that weekend.
Via email from Kris:
The power to do good is also the power to do harm.
Milton Friedman
[There is also a variation of this attributed to Barry Goldwater (probably false), Thomas Jefferson (probably false), and Gerald Ford (probably correct), “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
Regardless of who should get the credit the idea is correct and people advocating for health care involvement by the government need to realize the terrible risk they are advocating we all take by giving the government control of our health. They can “give” but they can, and will, take it away as well.
Similar cases can be made for government involvement in weapons ownership, the banking industry, and just about anything the government was not given specific enumerated powers in the constitution.–Joe]
An atomic blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.
Salvor Hardin
[This is as true today as it was in the future. Something both tyrants and “Threepers” should keep in mind.–Joe]
It appears the FBI and the ATF can’t seem to play well together:
Agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives are feuding over bomb investigations — racing each other to crime scenes, failing to share information and refusing to train together, according to a draft report obtained by The Associated Press.
The report says Justice Department bosses have repeatedly failed to fix the problem.
The Justice Department’s Inspector General, Glenn Fine, has drafted a preliminary report on the two agencies’ repeated squabbles to claim jurisdiction in investigations of explosives incidents across the country — from Times Square in New York City to Arizona and the West Coast.
The most recent documented spat came last December when the FBI protested a local prosecutor’s request to use the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to investigate a blast that killed a local bomb technician in Woodburn, Ore.
FBI and ATF supervisors “tend to deploy their employees to the larger, more sensational explosives incidents, sometimes racing each other to be the first federal agency on the scene and disputing upon arrival which agency should lead the investigation,” according to a draft version of the report.
It seems to me the Justice Department bosses are overlooking the obvious simple solution to the problem. If they would just look in the Constitution they would find they don’t have the authority for either the FBI or the ATF. If they would just disband both organizations and let the state law enforcement organizations handle the issues there wouldn’t be these squabbles between the two illegitimate siblings.
But the Justice Department is just like any other welfare mother and the more children it can bring into the world the more money it can justify taking from the tax payers. It’s time to kick the bums out and demand they make an honest living.
This post inspired by Say Uncle’s post about bedtime stories.
Dr. Seuss was clearly a socialist, and the Sneetches story is but a minor example of it. The Lorax is worse. Maybe I’ll do a post about that later.
I’ve always wondered why the plain-bellied sneetches didn’t just host their own beach parties instead of being all butt hurt and envious over being excluded from the star bellies’ parties. Ayn Rand would tell us that the star bellies were attempting a monopoly, which in a free market (that is to say, a market without some means of enforcing the monopoly through legislation or outright brute force) is merely enticing capital into start-up competition. If the plain bellies’ started throwing really good parties of their own, some of the star bellies would eventually want to attend. If the plain bellies let them attend, the plain belly organized parties would begin to dominate, or take over altogether unless the star bellies changed their discriminative ways.
A free market is self correcting in so many ways, and correcting against arbitrary discrimination is but one example. We see this in real life just looking at music or sports pre civil rights era, where excluding black players meant missing out on some of the best. By the time I was in middle school (late 1960s) Motown was well-represented, if not dominating, the top 40 on AM radio.
That’s what I tell my kids. If their public school teachers can’t handle it, well, it’s their own problem that they choose to make fools of themselves.
Dennis Henigan apparently thinks of President Obama as the Neville Chamberlain of the gun issue:
Appeasement.” What word better describes the current attitude of the Obama administration, and many in the Democratic Party, toward the gun lobby?
The word recently was invoked by syndicated columnist Marie Cocco referring to the approach of the White House to the gun issue. “Obama and the Democrats haven’t stared down the gun lobby,” she wrote. “They’ve enabled it.”
Is it a stretch to envision President Obama as the Neville Chamberlain of the gun issue?
There is a major problem with this mindset–It’s total projection.
The people of this country had a “treaty” with the government. On the issue of guns that “treaty” says:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It was people like Henigan in the early part of the last century that began violating that treaty in a manner similar to the way Hitler did the Treaty of Versailles. It was the pro-gun people that did the appeasing and playing the role of Chamberlain for the last 70 years. Obama? He’s neither Chamberlain or Churchill. Even though he is politically aligned with Hitler on this issue he isn’t even playing in the game. Perhaps he wishes to avoid Hitler’s fate or that he is more astute than Hitler and realizes the risk of fighting a multi-front war.
Henigan realizes his hoped for “Final Solution” isn’t visible in the political future and is concerned. He goes on to say:
The real problem, of course, is that there is no end to the gun lobby’s demands. The more you feed the beast, the more it will want.
Henigan is also wrong on this point. All we want is for the “treaty” to be honored. “Shall not be infringed” should be clear enough and probably is even to Henigan. But, of course, the plain wording of the “treaty” is unacceptable to Henigan and his ilk just as it was to Hitler.
Let’s just hope President Obama continues to avoid getting draw into war against gun owners. If war breaks out it could get very ugly and we gun owners, as did the Allies in WW II, might not settle for a negoiated peace and demand an unconditional surrender. And if we have to drop a couple “nukes” to win the war the fallout will be unheathy for everyone.
Sebastian and David Hardy have a few thoughts on Henigan’s whine as well.
Microsoft matches charity donations dollar for dollar for full-time (a “blue-badge” in the local vocabulary) employees. The Second Amendment Foundation has been receiving my automatic payroll deductions since I started full time with MS.
Kevin reports my donations, matched by Microsoft, have been put to good use:
I’ll post about this again, but last night SayUncle asked a question about donating toward the legal fight for our rights, mentioning that he’d received emails from people saying they’d tried to donate during the Parker/Heller litigation and had been refused. Alan said that there had been a deliberate decision to take that case all the way without outside aid of any kind, which is why offers of assistance had been politely but firmly declined. However, all the current litigation, such as the Chicago incorporation suit and many others, are being paid for by the Second Amendment Foundation and CalGuns. If you want to help now, that’s where your money needs to go. I’ve been receiving solicitations from SAF for a while, but I did not know that they were the financiers of these efforts. They’ll be receiving donations from me in the future, and I hope from you as well.
The payroll deductions are open for change starting October 1st and I’ll be increasing the amount they get.
Making the Brady Campaign people cry just a little bit longer tonight niece Lisa picked up her concealed carry permit yesterday.
Via email from Kris:
Combining two of the things that make young men happiest in one place.
If women in bras and swimsuits are safe for work then so is this site. Refresh the page for another set.
No. I didn’t have anything to do with the site or any of the content. If I had both types of pictures would have been more extreme.
The final topic we got into was what he thought the biggest threats to the Second Amendment were, and what we, as bloggers, could do about it. His response was that he did not feel that the biggest threat to the Second Amendment came from groups like the Brady Campaign, VPC, or the now defunct Second Amendment Research Center run by Saul Cornell. He believes the biggest threat to the Second Amendment comes from our own extremists and lunatics, and that the biggest way we could contribute as bloggers is in confronting that cancer within our community.
Sebastian
September 15, 2009
Mr. Gura Goes to Reno
[I think it is extremely telling that the Brady Campaign and VPC are not considered a significant threat. They are headed for the dustbins of history.–Joe]
I like listening to Michael Medved’s radio program whenever I get the chance. For one thing, he’s good at getting leftists to call in, and then toying with them like a cat playing with a captured mouse. Once in a while though, I have a major beef. Discussing Obama’s address to Congress last week, Medved commended Obama for saying all the right things (the speech could have been delivered by Ronald Reagan). Medved was being critical of conservatives who were in turn being critical of Obama’s speech.
Sure; Obama said all the right things, in much the same way that Ted Bundy said the right things as he was coaxing his victims into his van. I’m not going to commend him for it though.
Even with all the relaxed gun laws and the big gun buying spree that began in late 2008 it didn’t translate into increased crime rates. In fact it was just the opposite:
Murder and manslaughter dropped almost 4 percent last year, as reported crime overall fell around the country, according to new data released Monday by the FBI.
The 3.9 percent decline in killings reported to police was part of a nationwide drop in violent crime of 1.9 percent from 2007 to 2008. Rapes declined 1.6 percent, to the lowest national number in 20 years — about 89,000.
The statistics are based on crimes reported to police, who then forward the information to the FBI. There were 14,180 murder victims in the United States last year.
“What has been impressive has been how flat all the violent crime rates have been since 2000. To a large degree that’s still the case, but the striking change this year has been murder,” said Alfred Blumstein, a professor of criminal justice at Carnegie-Mellon University.
The figures show that crime has come way down since its peak in the early 1990’s.
This was in the presence of a huge economic downturn which usually is an indicator for increased crime rates. So either gun ownership isn’t positively correlated with crime (and in fact is negative associated with crime rates) or there is some other driving factor which observers don’t know about or want to talk about.
I think my line in the sand got washed away by the incoming tide.
But I will know where it is when nobody else remembers.
Michael Gale
September 14, 2009
Comment to Jeepers Threepers
[Yeah, it often feels that way.–Joe]
