posted by Caleb on Jul 30
I’m with Uncle, I’d like to see Ray Nagin locked up right next to Fenty and Daley.
Guns being seized in New Orleans during traffic stops now by cops flagrantly violating the law.
This is one of the negative aspects of modern police work, the “culture creep” or “new corporate mindset”. This is where the anti-gun/individual liberty attitudes of the administration seep down to the street level officers, whether by accident or intention. The officer wants to keep his job, so he plays along with the “corporate culture” until he or she doesn’t even think about it any longer.
It’s a sad thing, but it does happen. Now, while most cops in most cities are still good guys, you see this kind of corporate culture creep more and more in places like New Orleans, or Washington, DC. and Chicago where the city departments are run by hardline anti-gun mayors like the aforementioned guys.
What’s the solution to this? Get rid of the bums. You change the administration, you change who’s running the PD, you can change the culture in the PD. Then once you do that, you can with your local department to ensure that they’re educated on firearms laws; get involved with the city council to make sure that they’re not enacting policies which violate the right to keep and bear arms. In short, don’t just bitch about it, do something about it.
posted by Caleb on Jul 29
According to the Brady Campaign, my Frankenshotgun is an assault shotgun because it can “fire up to three shells at a time”. Update: The Brady Campaign updated their website so that it doesn’t say “at-a-time” any longer, now it says “three shells without reloading”. It’s too bad that they’re lying and portraying a gun with a 3 shot magazine as some kind of super deadly assault deathray. Hoo-boy, three rounds without a reload…now that’s scary - I mean, they could fire half as many shots as revolver! OHJNOES.
That’s seriously what they’re saying about the guy who shot up the church in Knoxville, that his Remington Model 48 which has a 3-round magazine could fire up to “three shells at a time.” Like one of the commentors at Sebastian’s said, it’s a “stupid lie”.
Look guys, I understand that it’s pretty hard to scare people when you’re getting your ass kicked all over the map on the gun control front, but running a picture of a bird gun with an empty birdshot shell next to it and trying to explain how it’s extra supers deadly is not only lame, it’s borderline sad.
Real sad, actually. I especially enjoy their Youtube selection to illustrate how scaaaaaawwwwy the 3-shot shotgun is - they must be scouring the internets for guys who aren’t too photogenic to post on their website.
So let us do a comprehensive review of the Brady Campaign’s tactics on this one:
- Lie
- Misrepresent things as something that they’re not
- Lie some more
- Post a video of some big country boys with their guns to reinforce negative stereotypes
- Lie some more
- Watch the donations roll in!
I like that we can always count on the Brady Campaign to keep the level of debate classy and above reproach…wait, that’s not the Brady Campaign that does that, it’s gun bloggers.
posted by Caleb on Jul 23
You know, every time Josh Sugarmann writes an editorial for the Huffington Post, it just gets a little more sad. I mean, now he’s trying to claim that because S&W is making a DC vs Heller commemorative revolver that they’re walking in the blood of people killed with .38s. Nice, Josh, way to keep the debate classy.
And that isn’t counting his repeated personal attacks on Alan Gottlieb - he just can’t go an editorial without bringing that issue up over and over again.
Of course, maybe he’s just worried that he’ll keep getting calls to transfer firearms, since he actually has a Federal Firearms License, one of the very few FFLs in Washington DC.
You know what? Here’s the VPC’s phone number: (202) 822 8200. Since they’re one of a few FFLs in Washington DC, let’s all give them a call and see if they can transfer one of those new S&W commemorative revolvers to a DC resident. Really, we’re doing Josh a favor, since one of the conditions of holding a Federal Firearms License is that you have to be engaged in the business of transferring firearms.
Again, that number for the VPC is 202-822-8200, ask them about whether or not they plan on doing transfers for DC residents.
posted by Caleb on Jul 18
Joe Huffman finds a veritable cornucopia of bigotry and hate towards both women and gun owners. Oddly enough, many of them are Euro, or at least claim to be. Here’s a sample:
Poor America ! Why do you need all these toys ? Is it that difficult to defend yourself with words ? Is violence the only language you understand ?
I like the pictures of the kids holding the guns… Bowling for Columbine… remember ??? Are you, americans (lowercase) shocked when a riffle occurs ? Well… you now know how it is so easily possible !
Dear americans, don’t be sad when you’re shot… America provides you with the guns !!!
NRA can be proud, they have made a good brainwashing ! And they make a good money on your back…
A European with a brain !
AMAZING
Pretty standard grammar and sentence construction for these posts. I never cease to be amazed at the levels of vituperation that gun bigots are willing to dispense, all while claiming to have the moral high ground. It would be funny if it wasn’t true.
posted by Caleb on Jul 15
They have penis jokes.
posted by Caleb on Jul 8
From NSSF, with love(?):
Dear Senator Obama:
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark decision District of Columbia,
et al. v. Heller held that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding
Americans to “keep and bear arms,” including handguns. Recently, you have claimed the Second Amendment provides an individual right to own firearms. Your current position stands in stark contrast to your support while an Illinois state senator for banning the civilian ownership of handguns. Prior to the Heller decision, you said you believed Washington, D.C.’s gun ban did not violate the Second Amendment. Much like the District of Columbia, your hometown of Chicago has since 1982 effectively banned its law-abiding citizens from having handguns and long guns in their homes.
In light of the Heller decision, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade
association for the firearms industry, would like to know whether you believe the City of Chicago’s gun ban violates the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Chicago
residents? Do you continue to support banning an entire class of firearms from private ownership by law-abiding citizens, including your fellow Chicago residents? Do you
believe the Second Amendment rights of Americans should depend on where they
happen to live? If you do, which other individual rights enshrined in the Constitution do you believe are limited by municipal borders?
We look forward to receiving your responses to these important questions so that
the over 90 million law-abiding Americans that own firearms can know where you truly stand on the Second Amendment.
I’d like to see Vegas odds on whether or not he’s actually going to reply to that; because it quite accurately calls him out for his constantly “evolving” stance on the right to keep and bear arms. I practically need a spreadsheet just to keep up with how many times he’s changed position on the issue. First he was for gun bans, then he’s against them, then he’s for them, now he’s against them, make up your mind!
Of course, to really get the scoop on Ol’ Baracky, you should go to this link, which contains detailed info on all of Obama’s “2nd Amendment” positions.
posted by Caleb on Jun 30
I love the God Not Guns blog. The latest post is called “Gundamentalism’s Day” (tinyURL to mess with pagerank), it is absolutely hilarious.
You know why it’s so bad? Because it reads like one of those really bad TV preachers combined with an After-School Special. I mean look at excerpts like this:
Rather than offering a vision of community in which we are bound together by our humanity, gundamentalism encourages fear, teaching us to see each other as “The Other,” a potential enemy, a threat endangering our family, our home, our person. Such fear blinds us to the image of God embodied in every human being. Even more it blinds us to our own connection to the Divine. How can we reach toward God with arms open wide if in one hand we are clutching a gun?
I honestly don’t know whether I should laugh or be insulted by the blatant attempts to essentially tell people that they’re bad Christians if they own a gun.
I will give the interns that write the blog some credit though, because they’ve gotten a little smarter. They’ve moved away from making poor, easily defeated Biblical analogies and have focused on the more nebulous “spiritual concepts” side of things. Of course, it hasn’t stopped them from, well, lying outright, but I guess breaking the 9th Commandment is okay as long as you’re doing it for a good cause, right?
So here are the quick hits of the different outright lies in today’s God Not Guns entry:
- Gundamentalism is a religious movement without spiritual grounding. Rather, it is rooted in the sale and promotion of violence.
- Rather than offering a vision of community in which we are bound together by our humanity, gundamentalism encourages fear
- Gundamentalism creates a culture of fear then offers a seductive promise: with a gun one can live with out fear.
- Gundamentalism cannot survive without the complicity of industries, citizens and law-makers
- With the gun as its icon, the 2nd Amendment as its creed, gundamentalism proclaims that nothing is as sacred as the right to own a gun
I guess I could cut them some slack, I mean they only had 5 statements that were nothing more than outright falsehoods, surely that’s okay since it’s for a good cause, right? Or maybe the interns Rachel Smith subscribe to the inverse of Romans 6:1, and believe that if they go on sinning, then grace will increase.
posted by Caleb on Jun 27
I couldn’t resist one last Heller pun, and for that I apologize. I was pretty busy with work yesterday, and didn’t get the chance to put my thoughts all together in one post. Plus, there was just so much information to digest after the opinion was released that I didn’t even know where to begin.
Overall, I am pleased with the decision; while I would have preferred a 6-3 or a 7-2 win, a win is still a win. Like many others I am concerned about the willingness of four justices to toss out the Constitution because they believe that it means something other than what it says. That concern is the genesis for my reasoning that once the celebrations are over, we need to saddle up and get moving.
I expected that the Court wouldn’t address the issue of licensing and registration; and while they definitely left the back door open on that one, I’m glad they put the “if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously” exception in there. I think that you can make a very strong case to argue that a lot of “may issue” permit processes like those in New York and places in California violate that, as there is no clearly defined process for the everyman to get own a firearm.
Really, the thing that I feel like I need to stress repeatedly (and to use a poor analogy) this is not the end of the war, just a victory in a key battle. The fact that the Court didn’t address incorporation or licensing and registration directly means that we still have a long row to hoe on the right to keep and bears issue. While it is extremely nice to put the final nail into the “collective rights” coffin, we’re not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.
Lawsuits have already been filed against Chicago, and are pending against San Francisco, and possibly New York.
You know, I haven’t done a “Wisdom of the Duke” post in a long, long time; but I think that today a little John Wayne wisdom would be appropriate. What Would John Wayne say to supporters of gun rights, in light of the monumental decision? From The Sands of Iwo Jima: “Saddle Up!”
posted by Caleb on Jun 27
And Paul Helmke last night was, for lack of a better word, really weird to watch.
You can watch the entire 15 minute segment here.
Chris Matthews doesn’t even bother to hide his bias; repeatedly trying (and failing) to trap Wayne into saying something - look at his questions about “walking down broadway with a bazooka” or “are the government helicopters coming for your guns now”. To his credit, Wayne doesn’t take the bait on any of those.
Paul Helmke though keeps repeating the same arguments that we’ve heard over and over again, and honestly he looked kind of beat up. If you watch the whole thing, a lot of it is him saying “well, yeah, we lost, but…”.
The oddest part was at the end, right after Matthews’ “helicopters” question, where he paid Wayne a kind of weird compliment, calling him “one of the best lobbyists” out there, and then turned to Paul and said “Paul, well…” and just sort of tailed off.
The whole thing is pretty fun to watch though - not only does Wayne do a great job, but Paul just looks defeated and tired.
posted by Caleb on Jun 25
Could be today, could be tomorrow.
Watch here or www.scotusblog.com for updates.
Update: Curse you, Supreme Court! No Heller for me today. Definitely tomorrow.
(note: I just wanted to say “curse you” like some comic book villain)
