Month: February 2011

Arizona Intrastate Commerce Act

Arizona is working diligently to piss off the federal government. Honestly anybody willing to piss of the federal government is OK in my book and this new bill introduced in Arizona should really do the trick if passed. Several states have passed Firearm Freedom Acts.

Congress uses their power to “regulate interstate commerce” (which means something completely different than “abuse the shit out of your power” but alas) to justify gun control legislation. Justification is made stating guns traveling across state lines are interstate commerce and therefore subject to federal laws. Firearm Freedom Acts state any firearm manufactured, sold, and used exclusively in a state are exempt from federal laws since no interstate commerce took place.

I’ve often asked why these laws are written exclusively for firearms. When I was caucusing last election cycle we had an opportunity to present new platform agendas. The agenda I suggested was basically Arizona’s Intrastate Commerce Act. Obviously it didn’t go anywhere since most people at the caucus are a bunch of authoritarian neo-cons who can’t conceive of a law that would effectively enforce constitutional limits to Congress’s authority. If passed Arizona’s law:

SB 1178 will amend the Arizona Revised Statutes in order to provide that all goods grown, manufactured or made in Arizona and all services performed in Arizona, when such goods or services are sold, maintained, or retained in Arizona, shall not be subject to the authority of the Congress of the United States under its constitutional power to regulate commerce.

So it’s the Firearms Freedom Act applied to all goods and services manufactured, sold, and exclusively used in Arizona. Sounds like a good idea to me. Frankly I’m really enjoying this small surge in states telling the federal government to sod off.

Wisconsin Judge Rules Concealed Carry Ban Unconstitutional

Wisconsin still remains one of only two states in the Union that bars its citizens from some method of legally carrying a concealed handgun. I learned through Says Uncle that a Milwaukee Country judge ruled the ban unconstitutional yesterday:

In the ongoing evolution of Wisconsin gun law, a Milwaukee County judge has ruled the state’s ban on concealed weapons unconstitutional as applied to a man who had an unloaded, encased gun under his car seat three days after he had been robbed at gunpoint in the same area of the city.

In an eight-page decision and order, Circuit Judge J.D. Watts agreed that for Jeremy Pinnow to exercise his right to bear arms for security and self-defense, he had few other choices.

What’s interesting is the fact a cased and unloaded gun was considered a form of concealed carrying. In my book that qualifies as transportation of a firearm in a legal manner (had he been driving a pickup this would have been kosher under federal laws as there is no place to store the firearm separate from the driver).

Either way I’m hoping this ruling sticks through the appeal process that is likely to happen (this is in Milwaukee Country after all). If this ruling sticks it could offer the ammunition pro-gun organizations need to get carry legislation moving through the Wisconsin political black hole.

Convert That Ruger 10/22 to Shoot Arrows

Coming from the “because it’s there” department we have this amazing contraption:

LaRue Tactical is now selling a kit to convert a Ruger 10/22 into an arrow firing rifle. It replaces the barrel with a heavy profile barrel that can only chamber .22 blanks. An arrow is inserted into the barrel and a .22 Blank will propel it at 435 ft/sec.

Crossbows are for chumps… chumps without a .22 chambered stake driver. This thing should also be good against vampires. I’m not going to lie I kind of want one, just not bad enough for the $599.00 asking price.

More Victims Stabbed

It seems New York isn’t the only anti-gun state where multiple stabbings occurred this week. In New Jersey a homeless man stabbed three people with a steak knife at a Burger King:

An apparently homeless man armed with a six-inch steak knife randomly stabbed three customers at a Burger King in Sayreville on Saturday, police said.

Had somebody been granted their “right” to carry a firearm this situation could have been ended sooner. Alas New Jersey doesn’t like to allow the peasants a right to self-defense so the chances are higher for this kind of scenario.

I guess those stabbed can take solace in knowing they weren’t shot… right? I also found the second to last paragraph interesting:

Police arrested Pittel after locating him inside a neighboring pizza shop. He was charged with three counts each of aggravated assault, possession of weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

So possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose are two separate charges? If it’s illegal to possess a weapon in New Jersey wouldn’t possession of a weapon by for unlawful purposes by definition?

Unpossible Knife Rampage

The anti-gunners keep telling us if we place stricter controls on firearms that multiple murder rampages will be a thing of the past. Tell that to four people who were killed by a man using a knife. This happened in Brady Paradise New York where gun control laws are heavily enforced.

Violent people will do violent things regardless of the laws put into place to stop them. When these violent people wish to enact their wrath on other people they will use whatever means available to them. I’m sure an anti-gunner is going to claim the murderer in this article would have done far more damage if he had a gun but the murders all appeared to be deliberately chosen targets, as usual.

So what could possibly be done in these situations? Well a gun works very well for defending yourself against an attacker with a knife. It certainly tips the scale back to your favor.

PK-01 V Field Test

The weather here in Minnesota has taken a turn of the warmer. Sunday it was a balmy 45 degrees out making it practically summer here. I decided to venture out and enjoy the fine weather by taking a trip to the range to test out my new PK-01 V red dot optic.

First off sighting it in was dead simple thanks to fact it co-witnesses with the iron sights. If you’re looking down the iron sights you just have to line the dot up with the stop of said iron sights and you’re most of the way to your goal. From there you just have to make slight adjustments to finish up.

The optic returns to zero perfectly when you remove and reattach it to the side rail. Some people like to attach a rail on top of the AK’s dust cover. The unfortunate side effect of doing this is there is a chance any sight attached to the rail will not return to zero when you remove and reattached the rail for cleaning. The AK’s built-in side rail greatly alleviates that.

Due to my very poor red affinity the dot practically vanishes when placed over white paper on a bright day. Thankfully in those situations I can just use the iron sights. For most people this shouldn’t be an issue though as most people probably see red better than I do.

The optic has a 1.5 MOA red dot meaning you won’t be completely eclipsing your target at 100 yards or more. Beyond that it’s a typical red dot optic. Once sighted in your rounds hits whatever the red dot is covering. I don’t know what else to say about this thing at the moment but long term testing many reveal either problems or praises. So far I like it.

That’s Why Mubarak Stuck Around So Long

As those of you who read this site Friday know I was a little confused on why Mubarak was trying to cling to his power when so many people wanted him out. Well a potential reason could be he was trying to move all that money the United States government has been giving him before he left office:

Hosni Mubarak used the 18 days it took for protesters to topple him to shift his vast wealth into untraceable accounts overseas, Western intelligence sources have said.

How much money you ask? Quite a bit:

The former Egyptian president is accused of amassing a fortune of more than £3 billion – although some suggest it could be as much as £40 billion – during his 30 years in power. It is claimed his wealth was tied up in foreign banks, investments, bullion and properties in London, New York, Paris and Beverly Hills.

Much of that came from the American tax payers because our country likes to fund dictators and call it foreign aid. I think Ron Paul put it well when he said “Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of rich counties and giving it to the rich people of poor countries.”

Switzerland Votes to Keep Guns at Home

The anti-gunners in Switzerland have been pushing to bar those performing militia service from keeping their issued rifle at home. Somehow these anti-gun prats were able to get a referendum on the ballot which failed:

Neutral Switzerland is among the best-armed nations in the world, with more guns per capita than almost any other country except the U.S., Finland and Yemen.

At least 2.3 million weapons lie stashed in basements, cupboards and lofts in this country of less than 8 million people, according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey.

On Sunday, Swiss voters made sure it stays that way, rejecting a proposal to tighten the peaceful Alpine nation’s relaxed firearms laws.

Unlike here Switzerland has mostly a homogeneous and wealthy population meaning their violent crime is quite a bit lower than ours. Due to this the anti-gunners there can’t make the claim that guns cause crime so they have to resort to a different tactic, claiming guns cause suicidal tenancies and trying to establish a connection between these guns and domestic abused:

Martine Brunschwig-Graf, a national lawmaker with the left-of-centre Social Democratic Party, blamed the defeat of the measure on women’s reluctance to vote on an issue she says affects them most.

Women are the main victims of domestic violence, and are also the ones left behind when their fathers, husbands or boyfriends commit suicide with an army weapon, she said.

About a quarter of Switzerland’s 1,300 suicides each year involve a gun, and those calling for tighter rules claim military weapons, such as the army-issued SG 550 assault rifle, are used in between 100 and 200 suicides a year.

Also apparently it’s the fault of Swiss women for not showing up and voting on this measure that caused it to fail. Of course only men perform mandatory service in the Swiss militia so it makes sense that a higher portion of men would show up to vote on this particular subject.

I’m glad to see the Swiss people are still willing to fight for their right to keep and bear arms. I love being able to point to at least one well armed European country. I like the fact that there exists a homogeneous and mostly wealthy population that’s well armed, it demonstrates that gun ownership rates do not have a correlation with violent crime.

Of course when I bring up Switzerland in an argument with an anti-gunner they always claim the country is a corner case just like Finland. I guess that’s what you have to resort to when your argument has no legs to stand upon.

AT&T Unlimited Mobile to Mobile Calling

For those of you on AT&T, on one of their nationwide calling plans, and have the unlimited messaging plan you can get free mobile to mobile calling to any cell phone (regardless of carrier) starting today. Basically you replace your unlimited messaging plan with the unlimited with mobile to any mobile calling plan which are the exact same price.

Sprint has this feature which I really enjoy since almost all my calls are to other mobile numbers and thus I never actually use any minutes.

It seems AT&T is feeling a bit of pressure after losing the exclusive rights to the iPhone. Competition is good, although I’m unsure of why AT&T couldn’t just toss this upgrade on automatically instead of making you manually switch it (and not apparently advertising it to any great extent).