Bad News, and Bad News

Firstly, something's screwy with blogger. Can't make my posts nice and neat. Unfortunately, at the moment, I haven't the time to fool with HTML tags, so this post, in all its raw beauty, will have to do for now.

Secondly, my own computer at home is having issues. I got some errors in the boot sector, and in trying to get it fixed, the USB and LAN connectivity decided it would bug out. This is the computer I usually do a lot of my research and blogging on (as opposed to this one I'm on at work).

I don't know when I'll get it fixed. So if the RKBA Campus roundup gets delayed, you'll know why.

Finally, on a more national level, San Fran shows where its values lie.

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/0-0&fp=455c3739dfa87ebb&ei=xP1cRYuyHsagaKOg5OQE&url=http%3A//www.beyondchron.org/articles/Ousting_JROTC_A_San_Francisco_Value_3918.html&cid=1111093185

An organization known for instilling values and discipline to youth loses out to a lifestyle beset by tendencies to take advantage of youth.

Now, tell me how on earth this is supposed to show support for our country? Isn't that part of what an education is about?

Obviously, not to a loud minority, who seem to place a high premium on the right to buggery.

Hooray for the Left Coast.

Campus RKBA Roundup #5

Back in full force, you regulars! Neither snow, cold, disappointing elections, nor crappy internet connections will prevent me from delivering to you:

The Mad Hatter's
Campus RKBA Roundup #5:

The "please don't beat me for being late" edition.

Now, you're probably wondering, "Where does the Mad Hatter get all his stuff?" All will be revealed in good time. But not in this edition.

But suffice it to say, I have my sources. And you can feel free to contribute your own findings by emailing them to me at vol_907@bitemycrank.com (replace "bitemycrank.com" with "yahoo.de"). I'll give you the hat tip...and if I haven't posted a reciprocal link to your blog yet, I'll do that, too.

But enough self-promotion. Let's get down to finding out what I learned about what America's supposedly best and brightest are saying about a certain Amendment to our Bill of Rights.


This comes hot off the wire--thanks to the vigilant folks over at KeepandBearArms.org. A debate was held over at Harvard between Professor Mark Tushnet and historian Saul Cornell "over the challenges and possibilities for progressive gun control policy."

Basically, you have these two lefties arguing among themselves over whether or not it's worth liberals' time to address gun control policies in a manner that would make everyone happy.

Interesting how, in the 90s, "progressives" were all about getting as many anti-gun initiatives passed as they could. Now, the focus seems to be towards taking more of the middle ground.

Big government isn't really that interested in the people's happiness. It's interested in staying in power. That's why your best friend is the Constitution. Correction: your best friend in any case is God (He's got the best answers), but not everyone wants to hear that.


Baylor University: another article responding to the Amish school shooting, calling again for less violence, once again thinks the root of the problem has been found:

These preventative measures are a good start and will probably deter some potential violence, but they ignore the bigger issue at hand: guns.

I am astounded at the Editorial Staff's wisdom. Well justifies the several thousand Mom & Dad (or the State, if they went the route of indentured servitude known as financial aid) spent on your tuition this year.

A little confusion here, which is not uncommon to those still in the hormone-dominated throes of post-adolescence. Guns are the issue, but not everyone who owns one will do evil things with them. So, they refine their argument a bit:

The only logical solution to this problem is to step up the criteria for owning a gun -- or knife or whatever -- and make it near impossible for anyone with a mental problem, diagnosed or not, to come near them.

The ramifications for those who had breakdowns over losing the 2004 presidential election are dire.


Boston College: This one comes from a year and a half ago, doing a little bit of journalistic investigation covering a 2005 GAO report entitled "Gun Control and Terrorism." The report details a whopping 44 instances in 2004 where the NICS identified people with positive matches to a terrorist watch list.

35 of them were passed because there was nothing valid to deny the transaction. Let's stop right there and ask ourselves a few questions:

- What were the details surrounding these cases? They're lacking. Some may have wanted protection because they turned their back on whatever organization they were part of.

- Would you rather civil rights be trampled upon because of suspicion without evidence? I wouldn't want a gun in the hand of another Timothy McVeigh, but if it means disarming the majority of citizens to strain out a few pesky gnats (and guns used in crime comprise about a tenth of a percent of all privately-owned guns)--I'd err on the side of civil rights here.

- Speaking of numbers, where's the comparison to the total number of NICS checks initiated?

Add all of these together, and you see why the issue really received so little attention nationally. It seems the 2nd Amendment is doing a pretty good job improving national security, despite one dweeb's pathetic attempt at hinting that it's undermining it.


When I first checked out Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Online for material, the gay wedding ring ad (Puh-lease) made me think "Oh God...I bet I can tell what kind of articles I can find here" (since pro-gay usually means pro-Left, and therefore, anti-RKBA). But you can't judge a book by the cover. There's a 2005 forum article about guns on campus--pro, by the way. So much for first impressions.

What caught my eye was the more recent (Oct. 10) article about a philosophy professor who has "an arsenal of guns bigger than the National Guard," "600 hours of deadly force firearms training," has co-authored and edited an official police weapons training document, is a sworn deputy, and is a self-proclaimed gunnie.

His stance on his students' reactions:

"They're intrigued by it, perhaps put off by it, but intrigued, and they want to know more. Which is what I would wish my effect on my students to be. Whatever kind of clown I come off as being, I would wish that the effect on my students as being they want to know more. Wonder begins inquiry and if they are wondering about me, well maybe they'll sit still long enough for the videos and the readings [that allow them to] dig into the issue."

I like this guy. An academician and a gun nut. Wish there were more like us around.


Did you guys like that? Here's some more encouragement from Drexel University. One student debunks the hype surrounding the .50BMG in a Sci-Tech article. For example:

Another claim is that the .50-caliber rifle would be the perfect weapon for criminals, since a mugger with that much firepower would be, shall we say, difficult to deal with. I think this claim is made by people that have never seen a .50-caliber rifle: the things are enormous. Five and a half feet long (that is to say, probably taller than you are,) they weigh upwards of 35 pounds. Most .50-caliber rifles are bolt-action and have to be manually reloaded after each shot. Let me be more blunt: I'm not afraid of anything that fires one bullet a minute, weighs 35 pounds, and is almost six feet long. If a mugger pulled one of these one me, I would laugh. I'd be more afraid of pretty much anything else: a different type of gun, a knife, heck, even a crowbar would scare me more.

It is well worth a read, very informative, and written in the sort of "wake up you dumb@$$" attitude I love to read every so often. While you're at it, send a copy over to the .50 caliber terror (mongering) guys.


A blast from the past from Florida A&M, lamenting last year's legislation intended to better protect those caught up in the inevitable legal process following the use of deadly force in self-defense.

People, it was not written as a measure to for citizens to "be their own police," nor does it give "entirely too much freedom to the trigger-happy, gun-toting NRA members who want an excuse to kill the people who tick them off." Check the membership of the NRA and count how many members have a criminal history. Then compare it to the Democratic Party.

I think libs confuse that organization with the IRA. With as much depth as most of them look into gun issues, it wouldn't surprise me if that were true.


More recently, a student at LSU noticed last week what the pro-RKBA crowd has been saying about "gun free zones" all along: they're open invitations to criminals.

The intent of such legislation is to provide an area where firearms are forbidden and thus make those areas "safer." In effect, two groups of people are allowed firearms: police and criminals. While a real life game of "cops and robbers" plays out in these areas, the law-abiding citizen is left out in the cold, not even able to fend for themselves.

It didn't really help prevent three armed robberies near LSU's campus shortly before the article was written.

And that's it for this week's round-up. Stay tuned next week for more of the same!

Reactions to the Recent Election

I was perusing NewsMax this morning, checking up on a few reactions to this past election. There was some lamentation about the power shift to the left, but there was something strikingly different about the "losing" side's response.

No finger pointing at the other guys. No accusations of "stealing the election." No mass hysteria, no extra trips to the shrink.

Instead, there was more assessment about what they did wrong in the past few years to cause voters to side with more Dems.

In other words, they took responsibility for their actions instead of blamestorming. If there was anything good that came out of these elections, that is certainly one thing.

The links pretty much give a good overview of why it turned out the way it did. Republicans started acting more like Democrats--ignoring the values of their constituencies, embracing more big-government initiatives.

I hate to see the Dems take more power (I had enough of their crap in the '90s), but I am happy to see democracy in action.

Alaska is Still Republican!

I was reviewing my state's election results and, much to my pleasure, read that my choice for governor (Sarah Palin) got elected. Great--it'll be a breath of fresh air from Murkowski (a Repub, yeah, but one of those that makes you wish he wasn't. Lots of underhanded stuff--trying to pass oil initiatives without the consent of the legislature--you know, political sleaze).

It's early, I know, but I'm surprised the major news outlets haven't caught up on the significance of Palin's election. It's the first time Alaska has had a woman governor, and the youngest governor to date (she's about 41).

But, because she's a conservative, what sort of attention does she get? None of the accolades heaped upon her like a a certain carpetbagger got when she was elected senator to NY.

In in our State senate, some 28 seats are held by Repubs, 22 by Dems. But an closer to even mix can be a good thing.

I'm not too terribly worried about the balance of power shifting toward the dems. If they haven't learned their lessons from 2004, they'll lose it just as easily in 2012.

RKBA Campus...er...bone toss? #4.5

Apart from internet connection issues (the guy through whom we get our on-ramp to the info superhighway switched over from ACS to AT&T--it hasn't been a smooth transition) and general business, I apologize for not being a little more timely in my quest to give you guys a taste of what the up-and-coming generation is saying about gun issues.

David Codrea was kind enough to send in this one from Dixie State College:

Students, teachers voice opinions on guns in school

Kind of a mixed bag. On one hand, you have the Director of Security advocating armed teachers. Why? Because it seems he understands that cops tend to be rather slow reacting to crises.

But unfortunately, like most cops, he seems to be a little out of touch with the legislative goings-on in Utah:

“There is no legislation even in the process of being passed to allow teachers to carry guns on campus in Utah,” Reid said.

Hmmmm. The folks at BYU reported something different about a month or so ago. If Dixie is private, it's within rights to set whatever policies on its grounds. But if it is State--nope, the courts ruled State law has pre-eminence over whatever policy campus wanted to enforce regarding 2A issues.

Student reactions? How about two clueless freshman?

Our first, a 'major' in general education (=hasn't decided on a major) says "I think we should wait until we have problems here." Most of Europe did that when Hitler rose to power--it didn't really work for them.

Another one, a pre-engineering freshman sees the pro's and con's (no pro's listed, interestingly enough), but says "If we can’t have guns then teachers shouldn’t be able to either." There is such a thing as a minimum age to own a handgun. The way I've seen some young idiots play with pieces of serious hardware, it's easy to justify it.

Teachers can be just as jumpy on the topic, like this history professor:

"I have never encountered violence in a high school or university; it’s completely out of principle"

He's probably never heard spoken Norwegian, either, but does that mean the language doesn't exist? Obviously, he's spent too much time going over the past to pay much attention to current events.

Winding up that article, we have one freshman showing something of a reasonable attitude: “I think that only teachers that are trained to use guns should carry guns or they should just have more cops on campus.”

I agree with the former. The latter...ehhhh...not if you really want a tuition hike.

I'm kind of curious why the Dixie paper only chose to interview freshmen. Is it a junior college?


From Washington State, I found an article that didn't focus on gun issues per se (it has an anti-violence theme in light of the Amish school shooting), but makes an oblique jab that guns are the absolute root cause for violence:

The girls died because it was his right to buy a gun.

And I got D's in Calculus because of my pencil.


The next dandy is rather dated (from May of this year) , and comes also from the Left Coast. No, not the PRC, but Seattle University. An editorial in the Spectator Online gives us the full leftist battery on 2A. I mean, it has it all--Brady! Gun show loopholes! National Center for Health stats! Looking at it from an 'international perspective!'

But this quote bothers me the most: "Despite the saber-rattling of 2nd Amendment purists, the need for reform overshadows any ideological struggle for freedom." I think it pretty much speaks for itself.


Happily, though, you do find the voices of reason if you can wade through the propaganda. Like this student from the same university, who wrote an excellent article on gun rights. Like most that lean towards supporting RKBA, it's backed up with a lot of good research, instead of relying on the left's attempts to sway others by the visceral approach.

Highlights:

While there are no problems with individuals choosing not to own a firearm, restricting citizens from attaining the means of protecting themselves is an unacceptable and unconstitutional act.

Gun opponents must have much more faith in their government and institutional bodies than I do, especially after witnessing the pillage of civil liberties that has occurred since the September 11th terrorist attacks. Ironically, it is Democrats – those who should be most fearful of having to fight for their civil liberties – who tend to spearhead the assault on guns.

Historically, situations of mass extermination by governments could have been solved had their citizens been armed.

Read the rest of it! I love ending a post on a positive note.

What happened to Friday?

Yeah, I know...the weekly regular feature got missed. Sorry about that, everyone. Our internet connection still isn't quite what it used to be.

But at any rate, following David Codrea's advice over at War on Guns, I'll be moving it to Wednesday. Or maybe Wednesday AND Friday, depending on content.

How does that sound?

Taking Pornspamming to a New...er...Height?

I do have a Myspace account (look for "Jeremiad")--yeah, my brother got me started on it. Through it, however, I have come across quite a few decent gun owners.

Unfortunately, it also leaves you open to more pornspamming. Usually, it has all the hallmarks of a mass-marketing operation. Spam thousands of users with the same sort of impersonal message. Usually a link is involved, or in the case of Myspace, an invitation to be someone's friend.

I don't accept invitations outright. I check up on the profile. Always. And usually, you can tell the pornspammer. It poses to be some girl, very scant on details, but always has some sort of webcam link.

Except for this enterprising one.

I get this message, supposedly from the innocent-looking babe on the left:

hey Jeremiad
I liked your profile and would love to talk some more and maybe exchange some pics...or even meet up if you'd like? I would defenitely be into it. I check my e-mail more often then MySpace, so get me at kylynn9965@hotmail.com Anyway, have a good evening and maybe we'll meet sometime this week? Hope to talk to you soon!
love kacey:)

Okay, first of all, I don't know of many 23 -year-old PYTs with a horny streak soliciting possible encounters with a 36-year-old balding conservative Christian intellectual gun owner. Certainly not this conservative Christian intellectual gun owner.

And if, in the infinitesimal chance, it was the real deal? Nope. I prefer long-term commitments.

Needless to say, I am suspicious. So, I do a little research. Where to start? First of all, you check out their profile.

Now, unlike most pornspammers, this one paints a slightly more believable picture, thanks to the use of more verbage.

But I'm still not convinced this is the real deal. So, I google the given email address.

This is what I come up with--an account of a guy who was contacted by this same person. This pornspammer does follow-up emails, but eventually, they all end up in the same place...some adult website.

Read the account, if you're interested. It's almost hilarious. Especially when you see this person posing as so many similar, yet different, people all over the country.

Anyway, I responded by saying it was probably the most creative attempt at pornspamming I had ever seen, but no thanks.

Noticed Something Interesting on Idiots With Guns

78 photos featured.

22 of them feature Glocks.

Discuss.

Interview with a gun babe

Yesterday, I found myself in quite the enviable position.

A friend of mine and his family are moving off the farm, so I spent part of last week helping him pack and getting his stuff across river. Over 2 tons of stuff (no kidding), which we lifted by hand about five times before getting them in their crates to be shipped off to Georgia.

That wasn't the enviable part. Talking to the babe in the office was.

I should have brought my camera that day to treat you guys with a look of her. Incredible blue eyes, physically fit and evenly proportioned...straightforward personality, easy to talk to...everything about her held the promise of making any red-blooded American male very happy.

Including her stance on gun ownership. She was an ex-cop (yeah, yeah, I hear you guys, "frisk me, please!"), and had some pretty interesting views about the police force she used to work on (in short, if she ever went back to working in law enforcement, it wouldn't be in Alaska).

So I got to thinking, I've got to ask her what her views on concealed carry were. I've heard mixed opinions from cops on the subject--it was a chief of police who strongly recommended to me to get my CCW license, but you get guys like Sherriff Lee Baca who have got this "We're the Only Ones" mentality.

But anyway, getting back to the babe--If her opinions were negative, I'd try arguing with her about trusting your safety to a police organization you know is corrupt. But, there was no need for argument. She had no established opinion. Or, at best, an ambivalent one. As a citizen, she advocated RKBA and concealed carry, but as a former policewoman, she said it could possibly make her job a little more stressful, knowing that anyone could be armed.

Plus, since here in AK, anyone can carry concealed, not everyone takes time to educate themselves on what is legal--or prudent. So you get the occasional idiot who brings his gun into a bar.

But, as I said, she saw the point in lawful concealed carry, and carries herself on occasion.

Now the downside--she has a boyfriend. But happily, he is a gun geek, and they spend all sorts of time talking about different pistols and whatnot (the knife turns in my gut--all of the good ones are taken!). She said he is impressed with the Springfield XD, but she would stick to her Glocks.

Me, being the HK adherent I am, told her that if ever they were interested in looking into a new handgun, I strongly recommend the USP. I told her I'd show her my piece right then and there, but didn't know how my friend would react to being in the company of a brother who goes around armed.

I Take Gun Safety Very Seriously

Even if the guns are fake. I got onto the case of some of our kids who have discovered the joys of airsoft. One got a Beretta 92F, another a Walther P99 (which seemed to me to be a little larger than the real thing, from what I remembered owning a SW99 several years ago).

At any rate, I was moving some furniture when a bunch of them were shooting each other near our bike rack.

I stopped the van and called the boys near, saying, "I know it's all fun, but I don't want to see you guys shooting each other with these without some sort of eye protection."

Since I've built something of a reputation of being the farm's pistol expert, I think they took it to heart. Hope so. They wouldn't like it too much if they had to go through life with only one eye.

Campus RKBA Roundup #4

This week's edition of the Campus RKBA roundup showed a pretty good balance, with some surprising favor towards the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Had some technical difficulties whack out the farm's internet connection this week, so I wasn't able to scour the Web for as many student op-ed pieces as I could have found. But what I have, I'll share.

Most of the articles are pretty out-of-date by several months. Seems that everyone has calmed down about school shootings or concealed-carry issues...

...or they're just waiting for the mid-term elections to get underway so they can really spring their rhetorical ammunition on everyone and try to rake in the votes for their favorite ideologue.

At any rate, my first find comes from Georgetown. Now, having had a left-leaning prof from G-town (check this out--female, just got her Ph.D, first professorship, divorcee--translating as big ego, "I am woman, hear me roar," man-hating (well, condescending)--it made life rather interesting for this conservative male grad student), you kind of figure that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Well, whether you consider this fella a good apple or a bad one, I'll leave to you. But it seems that his experiences with the D.C. area (want a taste of the madness? Read this) really give him some good insight into the practicality of arms for self-defense. So much so, he says that "Happiness is a Legal Gun," and backs up his opinion with a lot of research.

Contrast this, however, to this leftie from Norwalk who decided to take his opinions to the gun range, and still came back an unbeliever. You can't fault the guy for trying. At least he admitted he had fun shooting.

You see, this is the sort of thing I would like to try with just about every fearful gun virgin I come across: "Ever shot a gun? No? Let's go to the range! Don't like guns? How do you know if you've never shot one? I tell you what, let's go, fire one a couple of times, and if you still don't like it, at least you're coming from a position of experience."

Unfortunately, uprooting someone from their anti-2A dispositions tends to be harder, especially if they live in a cushy ivory tower.

The problem with living in academia's ivory tower is that immersing yourself too much in the theoretical can keep you out of touch with reality, as seems to be the case with this sophomore from Arizona State. Reacting to Frank Lasee's proposal in Wisconsin, this attempt at persuasive writing features the liberals’ favorite weapons: fearmongering and fantasizing. She starts off with a bit of creative writing featuring Dirty Harry as a teacher. She fantasizes about students ripping guns off of teachers. She speculates about the economic impact of bullets and licensing.

What she doesn’t do: look into the hard facts surrounding the successes in Thailand and Israel. Investigate the particulars about Lasee’s proposal. Check out the facts involved in concealed carry. Instead, she fills in the blanks with her imagination, and we know how well imagination imitates the real world.

Oh, did I mention she was a journalism major?

Now, check out what this graphics design major from Auburn University Montgomery has to say about gun control. But before you click on the link, ask yourself, what can you usually expect from an art major, and a woman to boot?

Her stance might surprise you:

“I believe the answer is yes, but not in the way you are probably thinking. I have a family where every man and most of the women hunt. Even my grandmother owns a handgun. So I am not against people owning guns. I am against people using guns to solve problems that could be handled differently. When teenagers use guns at school, it’s time to make a change.”

She sees education and family involvement as effective means to both reduce gun-related violence and encourage gun safety. She also recognizes that gun bans are ineffective—the violent will find some other means.

Heading over to my native state (but not my alma mater), this Vanderbilt student's article is an interesting study in statistics: to use them, or not to use them? He seems rather confused. On the one hand, he says you can't really rely on them, but then says you need them, and tries to use them to disprove guns' role in reducing crime.

Mr. Vandy student, you earn this week's MHDD award for two reasons: One, your choice of an institution (double-entendre, as always, is intended), and two, for shooting yourself in the foot with your own logic concerning stats.

I have virtually berated many a liberal for spouting their opinions without substantiating them. Heading on over to my brother's hometown, Wilmington, one student over at UNC-W makes up for the lack of hard demographics concerning this coastal NC city's relationship with guns and crime by instead applying stats gleaned from the Harvard School of Public Health.

I can understand the similarities, being that Boston and Wilmington are both coastal towns, and have a university with at least 2 r's in the name.

And what does this regional-specific research yield? What secrets does it unlock?

...students who own handguns are more likely to engage in high-risk behavior such as binge drinking, vandalism, drunk driving and unprotected sex.

I read the above with great sorrow. Because...I'm a gun owner...and I haven't gotten deliberately hammered since I was a junior in college. I have never gotten a DUI, never vandalized someone else's property (unless you count rolling a friend's yard when I was a freshman in college), and haven't engaged in unprotected sex since I was an undergrad.

And I feel I'm missing out on all the fun.

But I did all four long before I ever owned my first handgun.

Heading towards the Left Coast, a philosopher from Southern Cal blames neither the NRA nor Hollywood for the recent rash of school shootings, but rather, individualism borne out of materialism. It almost sounds like he's starting off on a Chavez-esque tirade against capitalism (not knowing that Marxism is a very materialistic philosophy in itself), but laments the fact that families are more interested in giving their kids stuff rather than personal investments of time.

Not bad. Certainly addresses the problem better than throwing more money into school counseling programs.

Now, just in case you've started getting bored with these findings, let me tell you that I have saved the best for the very last.

Remember the Political Science Student from Butler University who inspired me to start the Campus RKBA roundups?

It pleases me to say that Ms. Danielle Rather got quite the royal reaming following her op-ed in late September. It elicited eleven whopping huge responses, warranting its own “Letters to the Editor” page the following week. Here are highlights of some of the responses:

“I agree with Maire Gurevitz and urge Indiana to ban all citizen owned firearms, especially those evil concealed handguns.

”Some .004 percent (4/1000 of a percent) of Hoosier concealed handgun owners are involved in crime each year. This is way too high.

”Guns are unnecessary. In 98 percent of the times a citizen uses a gun to defend himself, no shot is fired by the crime victim. If the badguy is that easily scared off just by seeing the gun then you clearly didn’t need the gun in the first place. Banning CCW will prevent these unnecessary defenses.”

And:

“'Why do we love our guns so much in this country? Why do we want to be able to carry them around with us everywhere we go?' Answer: I don't know that we do love guns. What we love is freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures, which muggers frequently violate -- especially where ordinary private citizens are not allowed to bear arms.”

And someone gave my favorite quote from Alan Dershowitz:

"Foolish liberals who want to read the 2nd Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

And the hits just keep on rolling:

“I read with interest and dismay your editorial 'A picnic and a gun' yesterday, and I'm somewhat alarmed at the views you put in print. You expressed that that you're alarmed by the fact that our DNR director recognizes what our Founding Fathers intended with the Second Amendment. As a Political Science and History major, I'm sure you know the origin of 'gun control' laws as well as what Madison, Henry, Jefferson, and Franklin, indeed all of our Founders, considered the 'militia' to mean. It was not the National Guard, but private citizens, protecting themselves and their families first, then their state and country. 'Gun control' legislation came about much later, and is something of a misnomer, since it was not to control the gun, which is merely a tool akin to a shovel, a hammer, or a car, but rather to control Blacks and prevent them from being able to arm themselves. Enslaving and controlling them was so much easier when only the 'masters' had effective weapons.”

This guy has also noticed the liberal tendency to emphasize one part of a certain amendment, while ignoring the rest:

“The saddest part of your opinion is your woeful misunderstanding of the second amendment, and American history. Other than the fact that you totally misintepret the first part of the amendment, (militias meaning 'all' or 'individual' not collective, which is what state militias were), you conveniently leave out the second part about 'the RIGHT of the people to KEEP and BEAR arms shall not be infringed'.”

And commenting on the state of academia, as exemplified by our clueless coed:

“I am amazed that a student of your college would be comfortable displaying such an obvious lack of experience and wisdom in a public forum. It raises grave concerns about the state of higher learning in this country in general and definitely at Butler University if one of your students can be so ignorant in her third year of college.”

My reaction?


And not just because my two cents were featured! Read the rest of them, and enjoy the barbecue!

Idiot of the Day

Found this on Xavier Thoughts' Idiots with Guns




When I saw him rack the slide, I knew something bad was going to happen...

The Politicized Jesus

In last month's NewsMax, there was an article on the resurgence of the Christian Left. Last week, Gun Guys praised the Amish for meeting violence with forgiveness. Recently, on the Democratic Underground, Nance Gregg rants on How Jesus Would Vote.

I find it ironic that the Left, which has striven so hard to marginalize faith, now sees some value in it. But they still miss the point. Faith is not a political commodity.

Take the Amish, for example. While I can't quite agree with them on their total commitment to pacifism (happily, Christianity accommodates a spectrum of stances on this issue) I can respect the strength with which they live out their convictions.

But it's lost on the Gun Guys:

That is the kind of virtue and principle that is missing in the culture the NRA supports and enforces. They shout “eye-for-an-eye” (a sentiment that’s prehistoric, even by Biblical standards) and call for revenge and more violence when a shooting takes place. They think forgiveness is foolish and weak, and the only way to make a stand is with a pistol and a full clip of ammo.

Since theological discussion is absent on the rest of Gun Guys' blog, I highly doubt their assessment of Biblical standards comes from their knowledge of the Good Book.

For myself, being a Christian also involves understanding the depravity of human nature. I would prefer to turn away a nasty situation by more diplomatic means--and happily, most situations require little more than that. But I've also seen the element of human nature that cannot be turned aside unless some sort of force is presented to make it very clear that there are consequences if they follow through with a certain course of action.

Being a Christian also involves avoiding excesses, and praises the virtue of self-control, which as we all know, is a critical part of gun safety (something else also lost on the Gun Guys and their ilk). I remember after buying my first H&K, I was showing it off to one of my friends who was also one of my pastors. He said, "It is good that someone like you owns this." Better in the hands of the faithful than in the hands of the lawless.

But now, let us go on to Nance Gregg's rant. She's reacting to something she heard Dennis Prager say on Larry King Live, and is astonished that Christians would still be voting Republican for all the moral depravity she sees in that party:

The disconnect between what is morally just and the actions of the elected Republicans in control of our government for the past few years should be glaringly obvious. Where is the morality in a war that has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis? Where is the adherence to Christian teaching in abandoning social programs that assist the hungry, the sick and the homeless? How does one equate moral rectitude with policies that have enriched and empowered the wealthy, while plunging the hard-working middle class into debt? Who can honestly condone the use of torture and consider it to be in keeping with anything remotely resembling Christian values?

Ah yes, the "immoral war"--forget who started it, and the thousands of American lives lost in that opening blow. I guess it's moral only if Americans die.

Social programs: This is a leftie favorite. What they fail to understand is that there is a difference between giving out of the kindness of your heart (whether it be donating money, goods, services, or time) and having it forced out of your hand by a government program. That's not charity.

And as for the empowerment and enrichment policies--that knows no ideological boundaries. Was everyone truly equal in the East Bloc countries during the height of Communism's power? Nope, you had the Politburo skimming the cream off the top, and then some. What about Whitewater, murder, drug abuse, and molesting chubby interns? How's that for moral rectitude?

We righties recognize the failings of the system, and choose the lesser of two evils.

It is not for the party that has proven itself to be more in keeping with the tenets of Christianity to prove itself worthy; it is for those espoused followers of the teachings of Jesus to prove the strength of their own convictions by supporting what is right, what is just, what is morally responsible.

We did just that, Nance. In 2000, and in 2004. Don't know where you were.

This One Ought to Aggravate a Few People

Cheeseheads, take notice! While you guys are wringing your hands over a mere proposal, another state is making Lasee's ideas reality.

Prospective journalists and other anti-RKBA propagandists ought to pencil in another appointment with your proctologists...this one is really going to wrench your sphincter...

Remember me discussing briefly Utah's recent litigation that nullifies school policy concerning guns on campus, where it conflicts with state law? (Look for it in Campus RKBA Roundup #2)

Well, how about a free concealed-carry class that's being offered for teachers in that state?

"School districts have long grappled with the guns-on-campus issue. Federal law bans weapons — real or fake — from school property. But Utah law now makes clear schools can't prevent people with concealed-weapons permits from carrying firearms on campuses. Granite School District's policy, for example, allows permit holders to keep their gun 'readily accessible for immediate use,' but bans teachers from leaving their weapons in a desk drawer or coat closet."

Several teachers are nervous about the measure. But think about it--if it makes them nervous, how do you think a would-be Eric Harris would feel?

Utah is going to be the state to watch for a while. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing Frank Lasee justified in his proposal.

Hat tip to BobG for letting me know about this.

David Zucker Anti-Dem Ad

Found this on What the Hell is Wrong with You?

Campus RKBA Roundup #3

With all the furor going on in America's Dairyland over a proposed measure to make their schools less of a target for the disaffected and disturbed, I bring to you this week's Campus RKBA Roundup:

The Cheesehead Edition

Wisconsin State Senate Rep. Frank Lasee (R) attempted to break a trend. Ever since Columbine, it has been obvious that making schools "gun-free zones" hasn't been working. In fact, it tends to better the chances for a would-be gunman to find easy targets within the limits of these zones.

Taking cues from other lands, like Thailand and Israel, and the relative successes they have experienced in allowing teachers to arm themselves for the defense of themselves and their charges, Lasee goes out on a limb and proposes the same for Wisconsin teachers.

However, the mix of guns and schools make for a potent recipe for liberal hand-wringing. In the academic sector, fledgling blueys don their wool and practice putting their hands together for more gun control!

Reactions from Wisconsin's flagship campus at Madison tend to prove my suspicions about the journalism major being nothing more than a liberal puppy-farm. The whole editorial board of the Badger-Herald issued their statement, which, true to form, simply spouts the usual salvos of fearmongering, misinformation, and the party line, while ignoring the successes of other countries that have armed their teachers.

Another budding journalist follows the journalist’s playbook by immediately dismissing these same successes in favor for coddling measures that have proven themselves failures.

The views offered by another campus newspaper, the Cardinal-Herald, offer only slight variations of these same themes. The editorial board’s statement had little better to say as they denounced the proposal. What's worse, they don't explain why Lasee mentioned Thailand and Israel, instead spinning them off as countries “characterized by perpetual violence and police states.”

In this same paper, a student echoes the same sort of solutions offered by the aforementioned journalism major. Interestingly enough, this student majors in “creative writing...”

Warning: rant ahead. Skip the red text to continue the article.

Creative writing? All of the sudden, a slight tremor builds up within me…

“What the hell kind of a major is THAT?” In my days in grade school, back when Jimmy “My lips are as big as Mick Jagger’s but I don’t make half as much sense” Carter was President, we started creative writing in fourth grade! I understand that it’s gotten to the point nowadays that students entering into college need remedial courses to catch up—Holy crap, it used to be just “pass me the ball, beer, and a bimbo, bother me not with books” bonehead jocks, NOW it’s going mainstream—but making a bona fide major out of it?

What the hell is going on in academia? It’s getting to the point that your undergraduate degree in liberal arts isn’t going to amount to more than a gold starred doodle on your mother’s refrigerator unless you earned it before the Clinton Administration.

I can only hope that this major field of study is really a euphemism for “journalism,” which, in effect, is what we’re getting from journalism majors. Don’t know the facts? Make up your own! Be creative!

Okay, rant mode off...(not really, just decocked) While she’s “creatively imagining” these solutions, I wonder how she proposes to keep these students safe while waiting for all this “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me” to take? Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris certainly didn’t wait around. And they certainly didn’t pause for a “vocal, intense and lengthy debate in this country about how to prevent violence” like this tool proposes.

But months before the school shooting in Wisconsin, one student at Brandeis University seems to have seen the connection of arms and security on school grounds. In 2003, the prevailing attitude among campus police towards being armed was rather negative. Three years later, there seems to be a change of heart among their unarmed officers. Now, with concerns over rising crime, weapons seem more practical: “It may be unsavory to some that Brandeis add firearms to campus without an obvious threat to our safety, but it is unwise to wait until someone gets hurt before taking preventative action.”

Can you say, "prophetic?"

The editorial staff for The Heights (Boston College) can’t seem to come up with as good a solution for violent crime. They pull an old favorite out of the Party Handbook--simply blame the government for “the easy availability of the assault weapons usually used,” and let that suffice for “in-depth” journalism.

Okay, what's with all these joint statements? Are editorial boards populated by lemmings or something?

Going further south (in more ways than one), a Sociology major writing in the Daily Tar Heel (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) attempts to offer her two cents on the issue: focus on the availability of guns, but also take into account the “highly gendered” aspects of these types of crimes.

As much as I love that state, North Carolina, your tax dollars are paying to raise up geniuses like this one. Okay, Miss Future DSS drone, you earn this week’s MHDD award.

One more "joint statement" (with intended double-entendre)--this one is given by the editorial board of Virginia Tech's Collegiate Times.
I could summarize it in words, but visualize a recently beheaded chicken, and you get about the same effect.

But one ray of light comes right on the heels of that display of herd mentality. A grad student takes the time to answer the hysteria with researched reason:

"Gun control advocates seem to think that the Founding Fathers did not want citizens to have guns other than to prevent government intrusion or invasion form a foreign force. This is a flagrant distortion of the views of the Founding Fathers and Thomas Jefferson specifically. He was very much in favor of citizens arming themselves for self-defense. If the editorial board had done any research on the drafters of the Constitution, this would have been abundantly clear to them. In addition, in U.S. v. Emerson, the Supreme Court opines that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not a collective one. Thus, a citizen does not need to be a member of an organized militia to legally possess arms."

Then he takes some of their own rhetoric and approaches it from a different angle:

"Anti-gun propagandists are always crying, 'It’s for the children.' Well, we now have laws that make schoolyards and classrooms the safest place for criminals to commit wanton violent acts without fear of armed resistance. Is that 'for the children'?

"Why make our children go to schools where it is against the law for someone other than a law enforcement officer to protect them? The police cannot be everywhere all of the time and suggesting that only the police can protect us is defeatist and contrary to the American spirit. We want to provide a safe environment for our children. What environment is safer than one in which potential victims are armed? We all know banning guns does not work; let’s try the opposite."

How about it, Lefties? You open enough to try a different approach?

Eavesdropping on the Lefties

Did a quick Google News search for gun-related issues, and came across this piece from Blue Oregon:

Democrats and the Second Amendment

Highlights:

"When asked why Al Gore didn't become president in January of 2001, most Democrats refer to the theft of Florida. Point taken. But Al Gore's campaign spokesman, Doug Hattaway, mentions another state--Tennessee. And the reason, says Hattaway, that Gore lost his home state of Tennessee--along with the rest of the South and the Intermountain West--was because of the gun issue."

"But to promote that message requires consistency on the whole Constitution."

"Supporting the 2nd Amendment is the key to supporting the rest of the Constitution. And supporting the Constitution--as it is written--is the key to supporting our national identity and the rule of law."

I read in last month's NewsMax how the Dems are trying to retake the religious vote. Now they're rethinking their stance, or at least their rhetoric, on 2A. Moral: Spank someone hard enough and often enough, and they might get the lesson.

But this line is harder to swallow: "the rank and file Democrats in most districts have no impulse to curb 2nd Amendment rights."

Reactions to his article suggest otherwise:

"it's well past time to change the 2nd Amendment. Bowling for Columbine. Need I say more? It's just ridiculous the amount of guns that are in this country. Yes, I want to take away your guns. All of them."

"i realize this is just campaign rhetoric, and probably what people want to hear, but it's just wrong. the reason we have the 2nd amendment as it is ("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"), is because it was a poorly phrased compromise between those who wanted a ban on a standing army with universal local militia membership for defense, and others who wanted a strong standing army for defense.

jefferson tried to dismantle the army, but obviously he did not succeed. with a standing army, a militia is neither necessary, nor is it an effective counter force. so the 2nd amendment is basically a historical novelty. but whatever, i it is there, and i have no problem with it. good work on co-founding Gun Owners Caucus of the DPO."

And one guy who blows the whistle on it all:

"Zak may be pro-gun, but he is in great denial. The Democrat leadership (Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, Pelosi, Schumer, Durbin, etc.) are all incredibly anti-gun. Nice try, but Zak needs to stop spreading his lie that the Democrat platform is pro-gun. Democrats stomp on the constitution and are frauds to try and pretend to be constitutionalists. The people of this country don't have the wrong "perception" on this issue. The Democrat voting records are crystal clear, and Zak’s condescending words simply aim to confuse. He should work harder on changing his party’s position, not on changing public perception."

Alaska to Chavez: You Can Keep Your Oil

I have to admit: in general, I don't hold many of my state's natives in the highest regard. There's this stereotype about them being drunken good-for-nothings. Unfortunately, you see way too many examples that confirm the stereotype.

In many ways, the handouts we give to natives just for being native furthers this problem.

There are exceptions, though. I've worked with at least one, who really knew her stuff when it came to janitorial. And she used the system the way it was intended to be used...working towards being independent from it.

What many of our native villages did recently also disproves the prevailing stereotypes--turning down Chavez's offer of free heating oil.

"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."

Makes me proud to be an Alaskan.

Hugo, you can kindly go take a petroleum enema.

Idiot of the Day

(Found on Cowboy Blob)

Survival Tip: Combat Mindset

Over at the LawDog Files is an excellent treatise on having the right mindset. A lot of people get taken advantage of simply because they can't believe another human being would violate them (whether it be a hit, being accosted, etc.). They spend a fair amount of time in the "I can't believe it" shock, which gives the perp all the time he needs to either finish what he started, or get a good head start away from you.

Wisconsin, Thailand, and "World Opinion"

School shootings often prompt Lefties to stir up the gun debate again. Well, come to think of it, anything often stirs up the gun debate to a Leftie. A penny on the ground! It looks like the copper jacket of a bullet! That reminds me--we need to baaaaan guns!

However, when Libs want to debate domestic matters, they usually turn to "world opinion" to give them some semblance of moral high ground (although morals and Leftism go about as well together as a flügelhorn and an oosik).

If they understood the track record of "world opinion" (as discussed in this article by Dennis Prager), they might not be so quick to use it in their rhetoric.

But, regardless of that, if they are really that interested in following the examples of other countries, I wonder if they've bothered looking at Thailand recently in light of these school shootings. John Lott reports that in the face of threats of violence from the outside, they are encouraging their teachers to learn how to use guns.

"You'd never see a teacher anywhere else in Thailand carrying a gun," said Sanguan Jintarat, head of the Teachers' Association that oversees the 15,000 teachers in the villages and towns of the restive south. "But, we need them, or we'll die."

Will any moonbat take notice? It doesn't look promising. Like all things, "world opinion" only counts when it agrees with them, and you saw this in action when Representative Frank Lasee (R-Wisconsin) proposed arming teachers.

He quoted the situation in Thailand. Reactions?

It's lost on this senior at Wisconsin. Even though she recognizes what Lasee had to say about Thailand and Israel, I suppose it doesn't really count unless the country in question is France. Or Venezuela. Or Lesotho. Or Uruguay on days that have an "i" in them.

Ahhh, another rebuttal from the Badger Herald. Only here, the entire Editorial Board recognizes the success of what's been going on in Thailand! But because someone on the Right has proposed it, it must be an underhanded scheme to pander to (unidentified) "radical elements."

In Baltimore, it's not even considered. Not even mentioned. This columnist didn't even name the right Lasee (Frank approves, his distant cousin Alan does not). So much for attention to detail. But man, when they have something to say, you better pay attention!

Tomato Product Gymnastics

Brought to you courtesy of Hunt's, MRI, and Federal Cartridge, and your local trigger-happy Southern expat.

I had some cans of various tomato-related products left over from a lasagna meal I had made several months ago. They had expired, and rather than just toss them in the trash, I thought to myself, "Self, these would make for an afternoon's entertainment."

So, I packed up the cans, broke out the Deagle, four magazines, and headed out to the old dump.

On the way, I came across some of our high school students, who had just finished their morning chores over at the cow barn. Naturally, they thought the Deagle was cool. Two of them are from Canada, and since they don't have all the freedoms we do regarding handguns, I thought I'd give them the opportunity to shoot a few rounds.

On the way, the Canadians had all sorts of questions about handguns, and being the teacher that I am, I was more than happy to tell them what I knew. Like explaining to them how a .44 magnum was more powerful than a .45, even though the latter is a slightly larger caliber (answer: bullet weight and powder charge). Or clarifying how it isn't necessarily the platform that makes one handgun more powerful than another as it is the cartridge. And, I introduced them to the old argument of faster-lighter versus slower-heavier.

That was the lecture part. The lab came when we arrived at the dump.

There, we made cans of tomato products do all sorts of interesting tricks.

Like somersaults...



Pirhouettes...



and Back Flips!



Furthermore, we observed the effects of 675 ft.-lbs. of force exerted on a relatively small surface area (approx .44 in) of a 20 oz can of tomato sauce:



As well as the fallout when you hammer a can of tomato paste too close:



At the end, I gave the Canadians a chance to unleash the thunder. This kid was happy to have the chance. He was a little unsure at first, which isn't surprising, since a .44 magnum can be intimidating, but after that first shot, you see the look of "Wow" that comes over his face:



Glad to give them a taste of the freedoms we enjoy on this side of the border!

Campus RKBA Roundup #2

It's Friday, late PM Alaska time. 11-16 years ago, I'd be taking a break from the books and unwind with either a good game, good book, good movie, good woman, or a good bottle (wasn't always a believer, you know). I remember my college days well.

So, I'm going to kick off the weekend with my Campus RKBA Roundup #2. I've been taking some time in the evenings to find some RKBA-related articles originating from our nation's campuses via browsing the College Publisher network, seeing what's been submitted over at KeepAndBearArms.org, email submissions, or some random search I've done.

Starting off with older stuff, earlier last semester, the issue over at Brown University was whether or not their Department of Public Safety personnel should be armed. Michael Zapendowski thinks it's a good idea. His 26 January '06 column in the Brown Daily Herald responds to Vanessa Huang's article, which has the distinction of earning the first Mad Hatter Double-D Award (one D stands for "Dunce," I'll let you guess the other "D").

The opinions of this honorable fruitcake (whose article has been excoriated for misrepresenting a DPS officer) have been condensed by Mr. Zapendowski as oppositional to the arming of DPS officers, on the grounds that:

1) DPS shouldn't be trusted with weapons because they're a bunch of trigger-happy maniacs

(2) Criminals are really just demonized racial minorities and fighting them with guns is not the answer

(3) Crime against Brown students is really the result of "rape culture" and "Brown's relationship with the local community"

(4) The "imperialist" United States decided "to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan" and, therefore, the Brown police should not be armed.

In rebuttal, Zapendowski says that “having a separate police force that doesn't have the ability to stop criminals is a waste of money.”

Over at Rutgers, the Daily Targum featured an article on 20 February 2006 about its campus gun club--one that deals with actively promoting RKBA ideals, without forcing the issue down others' throats.

“One purpose this year is to try to expose more people to the idea that - if approached in a safe manner - guns can be a source of enjoyment, rather than fear or violence.”

That attitude, and the fact that one of their members shoots a USP, scores points with me.


Antis might do well to take note of this next guy from San Diego State. Why? Because a gun owner like myself is more apt to listen to him, even if we don't agree.

You see, this guy has handled guns, owns some, has some range time, and has looked at the issues first-hand, as opposed to merely brainlessly baa-ing the Brady line.

So he doesn't like the NRA. So he doesn't care too much for gun culture. So he doesn't see the point of owning an AK-47 or getting licensed for CCW. Big deal. But you cannot fault him for not looking into matters for himself.

We've been exposed to one sophomoric opinion already. Does a freshman have anything better to say? Max Schlusselberg, a major in journalism (adding insult to injury) over at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, attempts to throw Wisconsin gun owners a bone by saying, “My criticism of Wisconsin’s gun laws is not made to nullify the validity of the constitution’s second amendment,” but then goes on to baaa away for laws that work towards that effect.

Problem is, he looks to Canada to support his argument for tighter gun control.

OK, OK, you can pick yourself up off the floor now.

Sadly enough, this kid even mentions the Dawson College shooting, but can't seem to understand that, despite Canada's already heavy measures to restrict availability of guns, this guy got through. He then continues to mindlessly babble some of the fearmongering propaganda we've heard for years from the anti crowd about the unregulated open-air black market that they believe gun shows to be (happily, the Badger Herald has a respond feature, and a couple have taken the time to set the matter straight).

I was about to award this guy the second MHDD award, but I'll give him the benefit of freshmanly cluelessness (Ms. Huang, on the other hand, was a senior when she wrote her article). If he shows he can't do his homework, and publishes this nonsense this time four years from now, I'll have a dunce cap waiting for him.

In Utah, there's an interesting bit of legal wrangling going on about guns on campus. It seems that a 2004 law might actually make some University gun policies illegal:

The Utah Supreme Court's Sept. 8 decision to invalidate the University of Utah's firearms policy cited several key reasons as to why the university's gun ban policy is illegitimate.

* The Utah Constitution provides "the individual right of the people to keep and bear arms for security and defense ... as well as for other lawful purposes shall not be infringed."
* After the university sued the Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, the legislature passed a statute prohibiting any "state entity," which includes the university, from enacting or enforcing any firearms policy "that in any way inhibits or restricts the possession or use of firearms on either public or private property."
* The University of Utah's policy prohibits students, faculty and staff from possessing firearms on campus and "while conducting university business."
* According to the 1892 Act, a statute passed before statehood which lays out the governance of the university, the university is "subject to the laws of Utah"
* Therefore, the University of Utah is not allowed to disregard laws which interfere with its academic mission.

How's that for something completely different?

And here's something else you don't see too often: A University professor defending gun rights, rebutting some misrepresentation he sees in a fellow Virginia Tech professor's article.

While it’s not in a student newspaper, per se, it is worth a read:

Hambrick argues that guns are rarely used for self-defense or to prevent a crime because he does not see such reports in the news media. Numerous studies, including my research, have shown that the media rarely report these events, despite the fact that they occur more frequently than most of us would guess. Estimates of defensive gun uses range from 100,000 to 2.5 million annually in the U.S. A reasonable estimate is probably about 1 million.

Because of how news is defined and an anti-gun bias in some media, only those defensive gun uses that result in the serious wounding or death of an attacker are reported. Simply scaring off a would-be attacker does not qualify as news.

Even obvious defensive gun uses are often misreported. For example, the tragic shootings at the Appalachian Law School in 2002 were stopped when students apprehended the gunman. What was reported in only a few media outlets was that two of the students who "tackled" the deranged gunman subdued him with the help of firearms that they had retrieved from their cars.

His mention of Hambrick’s source for the frequency of self-defense stories is very telling. They take the easy way out…get someone else’s opinion, without hoofing for their own material. Seems like students aren’t the only ones who don’t like doing their homework.

That wraps it up for this week. Again, everyone, feel free to submit campus articles you'd like to see featured--post a comment or send me an email.

Brings New Meaning to the Term "Trigger Happy"

What a Deagle excels at:



Melon Smashing!

Anti Gun Guys' Brainwashing Keeps Them from Seeing the Problem

They can rant, they can scour the Net for gun violence articles, and they can most certainly spin. But there are two things they can't do:

1.) Admit that guns save lives.

2.) See that the problem with gun violence lies not in the tools themselves, but in the people that wield them.

For example, in this "rebuttal" (I'll let you emphasize whatever part of that word you wish) from Bryan Miller, a member of Ceasefire NJ, he tries to build logical support for his cause by telling the tale of how his brother was killed by a gun.

Tragic, yes. But what he doesn't tell you is that LEOs are usually not sent after law-abiding citizens. Said citizens do not carry "concealed illegal assault pistol[s]."

Aside: What's an assault pistol? What makes it an assault pistol? No clarification there (there rarely is from hoplophobes), but man, does that "assault" label give it a serious tone.

Miller claims he is not out to disarm the law-abiding (and in a show of magnanimity, tells the author of the article he is referring to to keep his guns), yet in the same breath calls for restricting gun availability to everyone.

Who is more apt to follow these rules? The point seems to be missed by Miller (quelle surprise) as well as the propagandist quoting him, with his running (and by "running," I speak of intellectual incontinence) commentary.

The burden will NOT be on the guys trafficking guns, despite your fantasies, bub. You forget that criminals do what they can to operate outside of the system.

It's something that's lost on these birdbrains every time. Check out the "Shooting Gallery" of Oct. 6, and you'll see what I mean.

"IN: Pacers player involved in shooting outside strip club" People who bother to read the article will see that the shot was fired in the air, in self-defense, and no one was injured by it. The three players all had CCW permits.

I suppose this is the closest we can get to an acknowledgement to the value of guns in self-defense, but note that the Gun Guys preface their list with "Gunfire ends even more lives on our cities’ streets, every single day of the week."

Whoops. Guess they missed that one. I wonder if they even read the article.

This gives me an idea to submit one of my own--"Alaska Man Involved in Shooting at Rural Dump Site." Four old cans of expired tomato product blown away, execution-style, with a high-capacity semi-automatic .44 magnum. The man is armed, and on the loose.

Or come up with one of your own! "Florida Family involved in Backyard Slaughter:" A family of Colombian immigrants had a pig roast on their property. "Camouflaged Gunmen Involved in Pennsyvlania Backwoods Shootout:" It's deer season!

"MO: Kansas City man charged in fatal shooting over dice game" The man is 20 years old, therefore, possessed that handgun illegally.

"OH: Student in critical condition after being shot in the face during volleyball match" Ditto. Perps involved were 18 and under (illegal possession of a handgun), and were involved in a robbery (criminal activity).

"NE: Sheriff’s deputy arrested in school shooting threat. Wha?" No details given about the circumstances involving the deputy. How convenient. Turns out the "threat" was a guy claiming to shoot a pellet gun for target practice. He was not charged.

No lives ended that day (but man, I bet that toke was tasty, Gun Guys!). But put the words "school" and "shooting" together, and you have instant hype.

"CA: Woman injured by gunfire during vigil for slain teen" The shooting was gang-related, according to police.

"WA: Man shot in face on Beacon Hill" Not a lot of details given, but that the local P.D.'s gang violence unit was brought in to handle it should tell you something.

The fella was injured, but not seriously. Strike three!

"KY: Bodies of four children and a wounded woman found after shooting" Very, very scant on details. The perp is supposedly a Somalian refugee (which screams to me "illegally acquired weapon"), who turned himself in to to the cops afterwards.

"IN: Woman dies in hospital from shooting a month ago" Motives will never be known regarding why a 80-year-old legally blind, wheelchair-bound man shot his caregiver, then involved himself in a four-hour standoff with police before shooting himself.

"TX: Shooting leads to police pursuit of black pickup truck" Conveniently again, this incident is lacking in a lot of detail (and no deaths mentioned).

Not that details matter to guys like these. Just mention "gun" to them, and you will get ovine moanings of "baaaaaan, baaaaaan."

So much for "straight shooting."

One Reason Why Libs Should Not Vote

Rosie O' Donnell: The Second Amendment..."It's Not Really a Right."
(h/t: Keepandbeararms.org)

Time to try my hand at fisking. Sit me next to the conservative babe. Hi, Elizabeth, my name is Jeremy, and I am everything you're looking for in a man. I'm an Alaskan, I'm highly educated, and I'm a co-owner of a business that sells luxurious furs.

What, you're married? Figures. All of the good ones are taken...but if something should go south...let me give you my business card. Hope you like snuggling in cold weather and long nights...

OK, OK, I'll get on topic. Hi, Blarb...hi, Joy...Hi, er, Petunia. No, that's not fair. Petunia Pig was heterosexual.

O’Donnell: "I think the horror of imagining six to thirteen-year-old girls handcuffed together and shot execution style, one by one, is perhaps enough to awaken the nation that maybe we need some stricter gun control laws."

What really bothers you most about the above, Your Porkiness, the deaths or that a gun was used? Would you have felt better if they were beheaded amid the chants of "Allahu Akhbar?"

Oh, I see, neither. The fact that a lot of girls were handcuffed and you missed out on the fun.

Are you sure that stricter gun laws will really help, Miss Piggy? Look to Canada. There was that Montreal college campus shooting, and the fact that guns are the weapon of choice in murders in that country. Their strict laws don't seem to be helping there much.

Or, look at Kalifornia. The Bradys rated it "A-" for all the hindrances they put up towards gun control. Guess what--that state alone had over twice the number of firearm-related crimes than all the "F" rated states combined.

Oh, you want a hard number? That's surprising, given your tastes. But cow-poking isn't my idea of a good time.

Silly me, you wanted the numbers of crimes! Over 44,000.

O’Donnell: "I know that the Constitution has been interpreted many, many times...

Guess who tries to come up with the most interpretations? I'll give you a hint, they don't lean right...

O' Donnell: In the United States there is debate over whether or not the right to bear arms includes the lobby organization of the NRA, allowing no rules and no registration and absolutely, sort of, carte blanche, to make guns available to Americans in a way they're not in the rest of the world.

Are you sure that's what they mean? Quote them, and stop imagining what they would say in your perfect world of squealing paranoia.

[Leans over to Elizabeth]: This is how you handle a liberal. Other methods include Thorazine and/or a good slapping. But I think our porcine friend would enjoy the latter too much.

Hasselbeck: "So you can’t- You can't take way the right to, to bear arms."

O’Donnell: "Well, it’s not really a right. There’s debate as to what that-"

[I stand up, waving my arms] Hoooooold on a minute there, Schweiney. When was the last time you really looked at the Constitution? I know you want to hold a "debate," and haggle over minutiae like "well-regulated militia" while completely ignoring the "shall not be infringed" part.

O’Donnell: "Well, what about this? The firearm death rate among children in America 0 to 14 is 12 times higher then all 25 other industrialized nation combined. Combined."

Hasselbeck: "What about the fact that firearms- Well, firearms are used 60 times more to defend people then they are to take a life in this country, too. That’s another statistic. This is why we have the debate."

[Pumping fist in victory] Go get 'em, girl! How about THIS: If the Brady's statistics are true, and there are some 192 million privately-owned guns in the U.S. of A, then the crimes-to-guns ratio in this country is very, very low. Like, less than a tenth of a percent!

O’Donnell: "I know, but maybe-"

Hasselbeck: "These things confuse us as, as Americans, but, in, in the results of children dying kind of bring it to a front, they bring it right to a boil. And that's why we have this discussion. That should not happen. But you have to remember that people protect themselves. In the times of segregation, when there were bigoted officers out there trying to just rule over and have government tyranny, people had to defend themselves somehow and they did it with guns."

YESSSSSSS! Why don't you see more women like this on TV, huh?

O’Donnell: "You can find an automobile that has a VIN number, if an automobile is stolen and you can trace it back to where the person bought the car and who bought it."

Behar: "Don’t tell them how to get it."

Hasselbeck: "You can. You can. I found out that I had a lemon that way."

O’Donnell: "You can buy a gun in America and it is not licensed. We can't trace who bought it, who owned it or who is responsible. That’s wrong."

Sounds like you have experience in these matters, razorback. Care to tell us how you know this so well? I can tell you for a fact that all of my guns are registered, through legitimate sources.

Behar: "I think people want to hunt, that's a right as you’re describing with their rifles. Why do they need an AK--47? Are these deer in the Israeli army?"

Whoa there a minute, "Joy." What's with the Israeli remark? You pro-Hezbollah or something? I shouldn't have to ask. You're a leftie.

What should keep a person from wanting to hunt with an AK-47? I mean, beyond your pontifications, sweet-cheeks. After all, it shoots the same kind of bullet used for medium game. You guys get your panties bunched up--sorry for the feminine allusions, Rosie--over external appearances, which is why you probably thought the AWB was such a good idea.

But then again, you elites like to sweat over the shallow issues.

Well ladies, it's been real, it's been fun...but a waste in trying to get you guys to really come to reason. Just hold onto your preconceived notions, and propagate them through the idiot box. Meanwhile, the rest of us will check out matters for ourselves. And when the SHTF, you'll be glad there were some of us with some sense not listen to your drivel.

Elizabeth, your husband is no doubt one happy man.

"D" is for Defeat

I've been a fan of Republicans ever since Reagan was President. I was rather disappointed in Bush (#41) as President, but he was far better than the eight years immediately after his term. While I consider all politicians as suspect (too many compromises have to happen to hold public office, it seems), I hold the Republicans to be the lesser of two major evils. While they may not always espouse every agenda I hold dear, they line up a lot more consistently than the Dems.

Over at Cox & Forkum, a featured editorial gives some interesting insight into the Donkey Party:

[I]f you want to have a debate over how to fight and win the War on Terrorism, you'll have to have it within the right. The left contributes nothing but proposals for surrender, appeasement, and passivity. As far as the war is concerned, that "D" next to a candidate's name on the ballot stands for "defeat." ...

Deagle vs. Frozen Cabbage, revisited

I've posted this before (look in February's posts), but thought I'd give YouTube a try.



I need to get some newer gun-related footage. I'll see if Wes is up to taking his .500 out for a spin this weekend, or sometime relatively soon.

Caption This!

Blast those 1/2 pound burritos from Taco Bell!

I'm really part fish...look at these gills!

This is really my impersonation of a crocodile.

Hugo left me for another Banana Republic Dictator!

(Insert crass comment regarding battery-powered devices here)

I'm supposed to be crying about someone, but I can't remember who he is!

I really hate all this attention!

Casey who? I'm crying about all the insurgents killed by Bushitler!

St. Cindy--patron saint of teary moonbats

Feel free to add your own...