posted by Caleb on Nov 30
So, first they arrest her, and now the local whackos are in the streets with torches and frankenstein rakes getting ready to murder this poor woman.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Archive for November, 2007
posted by Caleb on Nov 30
posted by Caleb on Nov 30
Because I’m a nerd, I Tivo Shooting USA every time that it’s on. Wednesday’s episode (which I watched last night) was magnificant, because it was about the National Muzzleloading Rifle Association Championship Matches held in Friendship, Indiana. I suppose I should include a link to the NMLRA’s actual website as well.
I’ve spoken in the past of my love for muzzleloading, and watching the Shooting USA episode was a hoot. When they showed the part where the guys were dressed up in buckskins and doing the “primitive shoot”, my wife just kind of gave me this weird look. Primitives are a lot of fun, actually. You dress in period gear (usually 1700s to early 1800s), cook, clean, and live like it’s 1799. It’s a neat idea, and it’s a lot of fun.
The end result of last night’s show was that I’ll probably end up joining the NMLRA and get started in competing in muzzleloading again. Friendship is just an hour and a half from where I live, which means that traveling to the match to compete would be a cinch. I can hear the conversation with my wife now:
Mrs. Ahab: “You want to run around in buckskins and a loincloth for a week while you shoot really old guns?”
Me: “Uh…yeah.”
Mrs. Ahab: “Have fun sleeping alone. I’ll stay in a hotel.”
Me: :(
posted by Caleb on Nov 30
So, I feel like lately I’ve noticed that the anti-gun crowd is really focusing on going after gun shows and the mythical “gun show loophole”. Now, to me that seems like a silly thing to go after, because, well…it doesn’t exist. However, that’s gotten me to thinking.
What if the anti-gun folks are going after the gun show loophole because it’s an easy target? Think about it - Suzy Soccermom doesn’t know a damn thing about gun shows, and I will confess that a little bit of bad information can make ferreting out the truth that much more difficult. So it does make “the gun show loophole” a pretty easy target to get people all riled up about.
But why that? Aren’t there other easy targets they could chase? Then it hit me that maybe they’re chasing this one because they’re losing everywhere else. No traction on renewing the AWB, Castle Doctrine laws are passing left and right, the gun market is exploding in evil black guns, and the Supreme Court is poised to rule on a landmark 2nd Amendment case.
The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. I’ll admit that my line of reasoning does square nicely with what I hope to be happening as well - but it does kind of make sense. Attacking a relatively soft target when you’re getting pounding can allow you to build morale if you win.
I don’t want people to think that this means we should relax in our efforts, either. Right now is the time to not yield a single inch, especially in the gun show category. It is a battle of momentum, and right now it is on the side of the Evil Gun Lobby.
posted by Caleb on Nov 30
As a follow-up to this post about Mayor Nickel’s “gun violence summit” in Seattle, the Seattle Post Intelligencer ran an editorial from Alan Gottlieb, which is a shocking display of unbiased reporting. Here’s the Op-Ed by Mr. Gottlieb:
Finding viable solutions to violent crime is everyone’s business and in everybody’s best interest, so it is not simply disappointing but indicative of a myopic predisposition on the part of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and the Harborview Medical Center’s Injury and Research Prevention Center that their much-touted “summit” on Monday on crimes involving firearms has a gaping hole in the program: No participants from the firearms community were invited to attend, much less participate in the panel discussions.
Like everything that he puts out, it’s well written and makes the point quite well. Remember that this entire “summit” is funded by the Joyce Foundation, which is about as anti-gun as you can get. I recommend you click on the link above and read the entire entry.
posted by Caleb on Nov 30
In an otherwise decent article about how more states are submitting their mental health records to NICS, the guys at CNN just couldn’t resist the temptation to throw the Brady Campaign press release line in at the very end.
Background checks, however, aren’t necessary for firearms purchases made at gun shows or from a private seller, which, according to estimates, account for about half of the guns sold in the United States each year.
Yes. They. Are. I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but a Federal Firearms Dealer is required by Federal Law to conduct a background whenever he transfers ownership of a gun, whether he’s at a gun show, or in his store. If he doesn’t, he has committed a felony.
Also, most “private sales” of firearms are a lot less under-the-table than CNN would have you believe. The average private sale involves me selling a Ruger GP100 to a good friend who I know isn’t a criminal. It’s perfectly legal.
The actual topic of the article is interested - the general thrust is that in the wake of VA Tech, more states are actually getting in line with NICS and submitting their mental health records. What’s interesting to note is that California has submitted over 200,000 “mental health records”. That statistic only becomes interesting when one remembers that it’s the policy of many LE organizations in California to perform an “involuntary mental evaluation” of anyone arrested for a gun related crime. You think that is a coincidence?
posted by Caleb on Nov 30
What they have is a bona-fide registration requirement now.
Under the new guidelines, only adults over age 18 would be able to buy and keep guns, with the exception of firearms for hunting and supervised target shooting.
EU member states would be required to keep detailed computer files with data on each firearm - such as type, model, calibre, serial number and names and addresses of both the supplier and the buyer. The data would be kept for at least 20 years.
Now, before this becomes “law” and enforceable on the 27 member countries of the EU, it has to be approved by all 27 member countries. I don’t suspect that’s going to be difficult, because it has apparently taken 18 months of negotiations to get this legislation, which is allegedly “the perfect compromise” for everyone.
I hate laws like this. I don’t like things that tread on the sovereign right of a nation to have its own laws as it pleases, and I don’t like mandatory gun registration. I also fail to see how anything in the new laws would actually prevent a school shooting, or any other crime for that matter.
There’s a line in the linked article that mentions that the EU’s new restrictions on gun ownership “bring it into line” with the UN’s policies on the ownership of firearms. We’ve seen how well the UN’s gun laws work for people. I guess Europe is just circling the drain. I hope that some of the countries in the EU decide to get a wild hair on their ass and tell the EU to take their gun control and shove it.
But I don’t think that will happen.
posted by Caleb on Nov 29
Some people are wine aficionados, some people are beer connoisseurs, some people juggle geese. I am a lover of coffee, and I quite seriously brew the best of coffee that you haven’t had.
Now, here’s the deal. I have for all my life been drinking coffee using a system called “cold-brewing”. My dad did it, and when I got my own place, I started doing it. Cold brewing removes the bulk of the acidic, bitter taste from your beans, allowing you to actually experience the flavor of your coffee. Got a nice french vanilla blend, and you’d like to taste the vanilla? Try cold-brewing.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will say this. If you click on the link I’m going to embed in this post, and end up buying something, I get paid. But at the same time, I wouldn’t recommend that you buy something that sucked. Every single person I’ve ever given a cup of my cold-brewed coffee to has told me it’s the best coffee they’ve ever had. Straight up the best.
The system works like this. I take 1 pound of beans, and grind them using a medium coarse grind. I then take the pound of beans, and put it in the Big White Thingy (there is a name for it, but I don’t care) which has the special thickass filter at the bottom. I then add 8 or 9 cups of water and let that sucker sit for 12-16 hours. After the time, I drain the resulting liquid into a decanter, which goes into the fridge. The liquid is the Toddy Concentrate, which is the heart of cold brewed coffee. When I want a cup of joe, I just heat up some water, and add my hot water to 1 or 2 oz (1 or 2 shots) of the concentrate, and BAMF, best coffee ever.
You can go to Toddy Cafe’s website by clicking that link. They’re “the guys” for cold brewed coffee. If you don’t want to buy the whole system, but want to try the coffee itself, you can get packs of the concentrate from their site.
I realize that this entire post sounds like an infomercial, but I really do love cold-brewed coffee. I haven’t sold out - the only adds you’ll see on the site are for Toddy Coffee.
posted by Caleb on Nov 29
Shockingly, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership likes to delete those pesky parts of the Constitution they don’t like.
I’m not surprised.
posted by Caleb on Nov 29
That’s all this “I don’t get hunting” editorial is, an appeal to emotion.
Without sounding like a wimp, I simply wish we would care about those creatures we are displacing and not make sport of their plight.
Oh the poor deer! Whatever will we do about them! The “plight” of the cloven-hoofed rat, aka white-tailed deer isn’t one of those things that I’m overly concerned about. I don’t even hunt deer and I think that for all her protestations, this woman ends up sounding like a wimp.
Seriously, the part where says that she doesn’t understand how people can be happy after killing poor Bambi makes her sound like a wimp. I guess it goes part and parcel with this whole crusade to “respect animals” or something. Forgetting for the moment that hunters do help control deer populations, and that deer are responsible for more animal related fatalities than any other animal in North America; I still can’t feel sorry for deer. They’re almost a pest animal in some areas.
