Gun Control is People Control

And this bit of history proves further that the ones who benefit are those in power. No surprise there. The examples of Adolf Hitler, Communist Russia, and other autocratic regimes have been used enough to demonstrate that point.

These are probably the more blatant examples of forceful policy used to keep the underlings in line. But on a more subtle level, gun privileges can be dangled out like a carrot on a stick to keep a person or party in power.

This snippet of history comes from 1800s Italy. Sicily, to be precise. I've been reading John Dickie's Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia when I came across this paragraph, and found it very apropos to how the right to self-defense can be manipulated for purposes of political influence:

"Gun licenses are a good example of the chain of favours linking men like [Don Raffaele] Palizzolo [a prominent man in mid-to-late 1800s Palermo] and the mafia. They could only be obtained with a reference from a leading citizen, such as a politician. This was an obvious opportunity to curry favour. In the run-up to elections the deal became more systematic. On the order of the Minister of the Interior, the prefect could withdraw all gun permits. His declared aim was to prevent the political contest spilling over into violence, but the real aim was to influence the vote. Only sponsoring letters from the central government's favoured electoral candidate would allow the licenses to be returned. The politicians would sell such letters for electoral funds, votes, or favours."

If that isn't an example of what can happen if we allow our 2A rights to be "reinterpreted," then I don't know what is. What was once a right becomes a plaything in the hands of someone wanting to hold onto power.

FactCheck goes down in flames

My Brother and I had been going over Palin vs. Obama a couple of weeks ago.

I am a gun owning, religious minded business owner from Alaska. Guess whose side I take.

He is an actor engaged to a teacher from eastern North Carolina. Guess whose side he takes.

Anyway, he told me about this great "non-partisan" website he found regarding where candidates really stand on the issues--FactCheck.org. Which he had been using to try to debunk some of the attacks against Obama and reinforce those against McCain and Palin.

Well, I'd heard about similar sites, like snopes.com, and many of them take pains to make sure the record is set straight. I figured FC was no different.

Flashback to 1995. I am writing my Master's Thesis, and Professor Höyng makes a remark about a comment I made regarding Friedrich Schiller and his approach to presenting history in drama. He says that basically, there is no difference between Schiller and how others report facts--everyone writes their own perspectives into what they are expressing.

Seems that this was not lost on FC.org. If you follow the link embedded in the title, you'll find some pretty blatant falsehoods regarding Obama's activities regarding 2A. The friendly front-end he puts on for the gun crowd is incompatible with the back-end votes he has cast while in the State and Federal senates.

Seems that FC.org has some left-leaning biases. So much for non-partisanship.

hat tip to Sharp as a Marble.

After all this time...

The idea of "Muscle Memory" holds up.

I took the H&K out to the trash heap this evening, in the interests of perforating tin and styrofoam. I wasn't terribly impressed with my marksmanship at first--the first twenty rounds went left and low of my mark, but once I got past flinching, and got into my focus, I hit my targets (paper plates and the top of a soup can, from 15-20 yards) a good 80% of the time for the remaining 30 rounds I had brought with me.

Not impressive, but satisfactory, and certainly encouraging for someone who hasn't squeezed off rounds since this past March or April.

I experimented with a new grip I had seen on one of the other gun blogs. Here's my approximation of it:


















It's OK, not that much of a change from the grip I normally use:




















While I feel a little more in control of the gun with the first grip, I'll have to shoot with it some more to see if it really offers any better benefits for me than the one I have been using for about 10 years. I'm comfortable with it, am accurate with it, and I'm pretty sure that in a stress situation, this is the grip I'd naturally fall into.

I saved most of my brass from the plinking spree. Once I get some more cash, I'll have to look into reloading components for .45 ACP. If anyone has any recipes they like for self-defense loads, I'll be happy to look at them.

Normally, I'd just buy a couple of boxes of Cor-Bon, but given the rising cost of ammunition, it may behoove me to roll my own for this caliber.

Some More Thoughts...

I was near a near-shootout a couple of weeks ago. Delta had a standoff situation about two Wednesdays ago. A fellow who thought he had enough of life's bad hands decided to take a shotgun and high-power rifle, walk into a Texaco station, and hold two girls hostage.

I was in town making the mail run, when I noticed the barricades. I thought "this is odd," but made my rounds. Along the way, I heard more of the story...about two hours before I arrived in town was when the whole thing started. The guy took hostages, holed up in a room upstairs, and shot out the window when State Troopers tried to approach.

I was supposed to have dropped off a tire at that same Texaco. Obviously, I didn't get to do it.

Now, I was armed that day...which is not terribly unusual when I go into town. But I got to thinking about what I would have done if I had been one of the ones taken upstairs in that Texaco that day.

Someone threatens me with a firearm. Same person shoots at State LEOs. Under those conditions, I would have tried to bury at least 2 230gr slugs in his head at the best opportunity I would have had.

I'm not saying this to be macho. I'm telling you what my reaction would have been. Unstable guy, with weapons, threatens me, others, and actually shoots at others. Someone may very well die by his hands. I have a .45. I am going to make sure the person to die isn't me.

The State Troopers handled the situation better than I would have, I will admit. They brought in a negotiator from Anchorage. He managed to talk the guy into releasing the hostages and getting the guy to surrender.

No one was hurt. Happy ending, I guess.


On McCain's VP pick: I am an Alaskan. You can guess the rest.

This was no doubt the best thing McCain could have done. I had pretty much lost interest in the race...actually, I had ever since Fred Thompson stepped out of the race. I really thought he was the best choice out of all of them.

But once it got down to Boy Wonder and the Angry Maverick...meh. I was seriously thinking about voting Libertarian, if only out of protest.

Then comes along our governor and SHAZAM! It just got interesting again.

I'm not reacting too much to the lame attempts the lefties are making to try to find some fault with her...Bristol's pregnancy...Todd's former AIP affiliations...it just shows how desperate the propaganda department is to find dirt on the best female executive prospect this nation has seen. Remember the furor they made over Quayle and Murphy Brown and "Potatoe"? They couldn't find any real dirt on him. And it drove them nuts.

Nope, they're just jealous because there's a lot more enthusiasm over her than Hillary.















Heh. Now, as far as my take on experience is concerned, I was doing a little research myself on Boy Wonder. He's been in the Illinois State Senate. He's been junior federal state senator for Illinois for about three years.

What I've read about his activity doesn't impress me. He's able to cast his vote on issues, go along with the crowd on issues...but I haven't seen him take much initiative at all. And yet his people have gotten on our CIC's case for being too reliant on Dick Cheney for decisions.

Now, Sarah hasn't played in senate arenas much, but being the main figurehead of a town and a state, she has been the one to steer issues along (and has done a fine job of it, too). In short, she shows a lot more resolve and initiative than Boy Wonder.

My only concern about Sarah is that I hope that life at the Federal level doesn't corrupt her.

Here's a reaction to an entry found on A Keyboard and a .45:
Demorrhoids want to call those of us not under the spell of Boy Wonder's white teeth "mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed."

But, if I recall correctly, people seeking psychiatric help in 2004 were not conservatives. C'mon, going to a shrink because of an election? Who's really wearing the straitjacket?


Finally, a little errata to post. My last post back in April represented something not entirely true. The numbers involving our casualties under GW's rule have not been less than Clinton's during peacetime. Armed conflict tends to raise the casualty rates any way you look at it.