Month: March 2011

Brady Campaign Whining About Illinois Possibly Lifting Their Carry Ban

Carry laws are in place in every state except Wisconsin and Illinois. To this day no evidence can be brought forth demonstrating these laws have lead to an increase in violent crime but much evidence exists demonstrating these laws correlate with a lowering in violent crime. Yet the Brady Campaign continues to warn about the “blood in the streets” that’s inevitable when carry laws are passed. Why are these people still clinging to their failed belief that guns are the problem? Because not doing so will cause them to lose their Joyce Foundation funding and then they would have to go find real jobs.

Now that Illinois is looking to life their pointless prohibition against allowing serfs citizens to carry handguns the Brady Campaign is throwing a tantrum:

Proponents of the legislation say concealed carry arms responsible, trained citizens and make people safer. But McCarthy says it would only put more guns in the street.

“It’s my personal feeling that the proliferation of handguns is not the way to go,” he told MyFox Chicago. “And I know the gang members will still get their guns and criminals will still get their guns. But remember in Illinois you can own a gun in your home, you just can’t carry it in your purse and in person.”

So McCarthy doesn’t even have an argument. He openly states that criminals will still carry guns and thus admits to the fact that this law only prohibits the law-abiding peasants. I also noticed he put forth no alternative solution that would allow a citizen to protect himself from a violent attacker. Perhaps he believes somebody being violently attacked should just call the police and hope they decide to come by before he’s murdered.

The bottom line is carry permits have been nothing but beneficial. There hasn’t been a single valid argument made against passing liberalized (in the classical sense of the word) carry laws. So far no “blood in the streets” instance have occurred and frankly the laws have been on the books in some states for decades. You would think the anti-gunners would wake up and realize nothing they’ve said has come true and thus their argument has no weight. Then again for most anti-gunners their argument is emotional and logic can go take a flying fuck and a rolling doughnut.

Remember We’ll Have No Troops On the Ground in Libya

Unless of course we do:

US President Barack Obama has secretly authorised covert assistance to rebels seeking to overthrow Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, US media reports say.

He recently signed a document known as a “finding”, allowing support to the rebel groups, Reuters news agency and ABC News said.

Such “findings” are a common way for the president to authorise covert operations by the CIA.

When the CIA gets involved in a conflict it can only go from bad to worse (for a good read on the failures of these CIA tactics pick up a copy of Legacy of Ashes). Also I remember distinctly that George W. Obama promised that we wouldn’t have any boots on the ground in Libya. This would indicate that he was lying but that’s impossible because he’s Mr. Hope and Change!

Utah Looking to Gimp Their Carry Permits

Utah arguably has the best carry permit in the United States. Although the requirements of getting it are annoying (fingerprints) the state does have reciprocity agreements with the most states. It appears as though some of those states are getting pissy that Utah doesn’t require a non-resident to get a permit from their state before getting a Utah permit and have pushed Utah’s legislators to change the law. Sadly this change appears to be going through:

The Senate passed unanimously a bill Monday that would require non-Utahns to obtain a concealed weapon permit from their home state before being issued a Utah permit.

The bill, SB36 authored by Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, aims at working with 33 other states that have reciprocity agreements with Utah — allowing states to maintain more control over their concealed weapons permit records.

Why is it Utah’s problem that other states want more control over their peasants citizens and why is Utah bending to the will of other states? As pointed out by Senate President Michael Waddoups this change will cost Utah $1.3 million but nobody else cares because those funds are dedicated so they can’t be woefully pissed away on stupid projects.

So if you’re a holder of a non-resident a Utah permit but lack a permit from your home state it’s likely (going by the complete lack of resistance in Utah’s Senate) going to get you banned from holding a Utah permit for 10 years. Just remember to thank your state’s “representatives” for pushing Utah into this after you’ve thanked Utah for being the bitch of other states.

Those Deadly Assault Books

Robb Allen brings a new danger to our attention, the danger of books about weapons:

Three men were reportedly involved. One man was apparently on his hands and knees in an aisle way near an emergency exit and appeared to be ill. Another passenger apparently tried to help the man, who did not speak English.

Their nationalities were not released by investigators or United Airlines.

The man in the aisle reportedly would not return to his seat. Passengers said another man with him repeatedly stood up and kept asking how long until the plane arrived in Portland. Yet another man was reportedly reading a book about weapons, according to a passenger seated next to that person. All three were taken off the plane in Chicago.

Emphasis mine. I can understand wanting to remove the guy blocking the aisle but the other two I’m rather baffled by. As a guy who usually reads firearm books in airports and on airplanes (I finished an entire book about Glock pistols mostly by just flying around) I can say I must have completely missed the weapon functionality of said weapon books. Is there some secret way of activating it? I must seriously be lacking in cognitive capabilities because I read that book cover to cover and found no way of making the book capable of killing somebody (at least without concocting some very convoluted plan that would work with any book).

You Know That Conflict of Interest I Periodically Mention

I often talk about a conflict of interest the exists by having one branch of the government determine the validity of the action another branch takes. The idea of having the same organization both perform actions and watchdog itself doesn’t fly anywhere else but somehow we’re willing to accept it when such action is taken by government. It would seem that I’ve found an example of this:

A bitterly divided Supreme Court tossed out a jury verdict Tuesday won by a New Orleans man who spent 14 years on Death Row and came within weeks of execution because prosecutors had hidden a blood test and other evidence that would have proven his innocence.

The 5-4 decision delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas shielded the New Orleans District Attorney’s office from being held liable for the mistakes of its prosecutors. The evidence of their misconduct did not prove “deliberate indifference” on the part of then-District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., Thomas said.

How’s that for the government protecting it’s own? An innocent man spent 14 years on death row because a prosecute concealed evidence that would have acquitted the man. Instead of holding the District Attorney’s office liable for the actions taken by one of its members the Supreme Court decided to shield the office from any accountability.

This is about as disgusting as it gets ladies and gentlemen. When a government office can’t be held responsible for taking 14 years of a man’s life because of direct actions taken by one of its members then there is no recourse. Then again what can be expected from entities that have officers that shoot an innocent person and give that office nothing harsher than paid administrative leave?

The land of the free is become less so every day.

Outbidding Police in Their Own Buy Back

Sometimes you find people doing their best to do good. Take the story posted up by No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money where a private organizations, Texans for Accountable Government (TAG), offer $110.00 cash to buy guns to complete with the Austin Police Department who were only offering $100.00 grocery cards in exchange for firearms. The best part though is that TAG will be giving these firearms to those in need (and can lawfully purchase them).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGovcSN07SU]

Criminal Use of Suppressors

Say Uncle linked to a very good study on the use of suppressors in crimes [PDF]. The study concludes that most crime involving suppressors are only crimes because the people in possession the suppressors failed to pay the government extortion tax to get a stamp saying it’s all good to own them. The use of suppressors in actual crimes is very rare. The other thing concluded by the study is the fact that banning suppressors is pointless:

A more telling criticism of laws against silencers is the ease with which they are avoided. Since one can ef- fectively muffle a firearm by doing nothing more than wrapping it in a towel it is unlikely that laws banning professionally manufactured (or home-made) silencers are likely to have any real effect on crime. In one case, for example, the murderer used a towel as “a make-shift silencer” and yet because it was only a towel this was not an additional crime (People v. Garcia, 2006 WL 3307392, *7 (Cal. Ct. App.)).

This is very near and dear to my heart because Minnesota has a complete prohibition against owning suppressors. Suppressors are only courteous to your neighbors as it reduces the amount of noise produced by firearms and therefore also reduces the number of noise complaints. I know one of the bigger headaches for firing ranges is when somebody new moves in and shortly afterwards complains about the noise from the fucking gun range that’s been there for over 80 years. Instead of realizing how stupid they were to miss a long established range these people try to get the range shut down and ruin it for everybody. Legalized suppressors would be beneficial for both the dip shit and the range members.

Because It Worked Out So Well Before

It seems our 100 $600,000 cruise missiles didn’t do a whole Hell of a lot of help the Libyan rebels. That shouldn’t have been surprising though as the rebels are still outgunned on the ground. I like how George W. Obama is pretending to make an effort to avoid sending in ground troops but we know it will eventually happen. The next facade he’s bringing up is the possibility of arming the Libyan rebels.

This is a great idea because then when we get sick of them rebels twenty years down the road we can fight our own equipment just like we did in Afghanistan. Granted I wouldn’t have a problem with this if it wasn’t for two facts; tax payers will be paying for the weapons and we’re likely going to send in ground troops anyways so this whole deception is pointless. I’m hoping to be happily surprised and find out we’re not sending ground troops in but alas I don’t think Bush 2 is going to avoid occupying another major oil producing country.

How It’s Done

Here is yet another reason that we need more people on Capital Hill like Ron Paul. Dr. Paul returned $141,580 of his budget to the government because he doesn’t go on rampant spending sprees:

Congressman Ron Paul has returned $141,580 of unspent office funds to the US Treasury. This represents just over 9% of the total office funds, and an increase over the $100,000 returned last year.

It would seem in a time of financial crisis that we could use more monetarily responsible representatives. Granted with the history of government spending I’m doubting we’ll get such people anytime this century.