Like a Good Neighbor

High Bridge Arms is the only gun store left in hippie central known as San Francisco. For five decades they’ve sold guns at their location but now, seeing an opportunity, a few people from the neighborhood are doing everything they can to deny the owner’s permit renewal (in San Francisco apparently you need a permit to sell firearms, who would have guessed). There’s a hearing today on whether or not the permit will be renewed but I just have to roll my eyes at a few of the comments made by those interviewed:

“We just want to see something in that space the neighborhood could use,” Ross said. “A dry cleaners, a restaurant, a bar. We’d take anything where people go to be part of a community.”

Being High Bridge Arms has been in business for five decades it seems the neighborhood is finding plenty of use for the store. You want a place where people can be part of a community? Try a gun store. The clientele at gun stores are generally part of the gun owner and shooting community. What community do people going to a dry cleaner or a restaurant belong to? You also have to love the fact that those who oppose the store are cowards unwilling to talk:

“I’ve never had anyone who opposed our shop walk in and introduce themselves to me,” he said. “It’s not like I’m doing something morally objectionable or unconstitutional.”

If you don’t like how the shop is being run maybe you should go in and have a chat with the owner. Wait I forgot we’re talking about Hippyville where the only thing those concerned have against the store is the fact that they cell firearms. Here’s some more ignorance:

“Aside from being opposed to a gun store, we don’t really think a gun store supports the neighborhood,” she said. “Now we finally have an opportunity to say guns don’t belong in the neighborhood. He can do it, there’s no doubt. But it would be nice for him not to be there anymore.”

It doesn’t support the neighborhood? Really? I didn’t realize the owner was delinquent on his taxes. Actually now that I think about it this story isn’t about problems with the tax collectors so it seems the owner is paying taxes, which support the neighborhood. The shop also provides jobs and apparently drums up enough customers to stay in business for half a century. What more can you ask for? I guarantee you that no other business that moves in there is going to do anything else to support the neighborhood.

I would also argue that guns belong in every community. How else are you doing to defend yourself? Oh that’s right you’re local police department have magical teleportation devices that allow them to respond instantly to a call about a breaking and entering.

You also have to appreciate the underhanded insult. “He can do it, there’s no doubt. But it would be nice for him not to be there anymore” roughly translates into, “I have an irrational hatred of guns and therefore I fucking hate the owner of that store and wish him dead. He can do what he wants but if it were up to me I’d nail him to a damned cross and murder his friends and family!” Hm, my translator seems to have fritzed out at the very end there but that’s basically what is being said.

Everybody Stop, Taser Time

For your exhibition I present item number 151 in abuse of Taser by police officers. Man man fell down some steps at the front of the house an injured himself. His wife called the paramedics whom arrive, administered treatment, and left. As they were leaving they were greeted by a couple cops storming into the house and telling the injured man he was coming with them to the hospital:

The deputy tells McFarland he is going to take him to the hospital because he may be suicidal.

“We want to take you to the hospital for an evaluation, you said if you had a gun, you’d shoot yourself in the head,” the deputy can be heard saying.

McFarland says it was just hyperbole. He was tired and in pain.

The deputy orders him numerous times to get up or else.

“Stand up, put your hands behind your back or you’re going to be Tased,” the deputy says.

McFarland keeps refusing.

McFarland pretty much did what I’d have done, explained the remark was hyperbole and kept sitting. I guess I’d have also requested the police to remove themselves from my property in a kindly way. Well the police decided the passive resistance to their authoritah was violent enough to require the use of a Taser. Of course as with any police officer on a power trip with a Taser they keep telling the man to stop resisting as they’re actively Tasing him. How much less resistance can you get and convulsing on the ground uncontrollably? The whole time the wife was begging the police to stop and even explained that her husband had a heart condition.

At the very least these officers should be tossed into prison for attempted murder. Personally I believe the wife would have been well within her rights to shoot the officer with the Taser under the laws of self-defense (which generally extend to loved ones). Of course had she done that she’s spend the rest of her life in prison because you can’t shoot a police officer in self-defense, they’re above than you, me, and the law.

More on Righthaven

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a nice write up on the recent copy-right troll factory known as Righthaven. They’ve been going around suing everybody they can find who’s used any text from any story in a news article they own the copyright to. The main problem is Righthaven is doing several things different than other copyright holders. The two things I have the biggest issues with are the following:

Righthaven lawsuits are demanding that courts freeze and transfer the defendants’ domain names. Imagine if a single copyright infringement on Huffingtonpost.com or Redstate.com could result in forfeiture of the entire domain. Effectively asking for control of all of a website’s existing and future content — instead of only targeting the allegedly infringing material — is an overreaching remedy for a single copyright infringement not validated by copyright law or any legal precedent. This also indicates that the attorneys are willing to make overreaching claims in order to scare defendants into a fast settlement.

Righthaven goes straight for litigation. Righthaven isn’t sending cease and desist letters or DMCA takedown notices that would allow the targeted bloggers or website operators to remove or amend only the news articles owned by Righthaven. Instead, Righthaven starts with a full-fledged lawsuit in federal court with no warning. It’s sue first and ask questions later, which smacks of a strategy designed to churn up legal costs and intimidate defendants into paying up immediately, rather than a strategy aimed at remedying specific copyright infringements.

Yeah screw the whole idea of being nice and first requesting any infringing material be taken down. Going straight to a lawsuit is obviously the best idea out there. Seriously they are total douche bags.

Another Crazy Greenie

Another crazy save the planet crusader bites the dust. This crazy fellow decided to walk into the headquarters for the Discovery Channel with metal cylinder strapped to his chest and a handgun. After entering the building he decided to take hostages and made some demands:

A man called James Lee of San Diego, California, was arrested outside Discovery’s headquarters in 2008 after throwing thousands of dollars into the air in protest against the network, according to The Gazette, a local newspaper.

Where was I when he did this? Shit I’d have taken that money. Oh yeah his demands sorry:

Mr Lee said he threw the money because Discovery’s programming had little to do with saving the planet.

He reportedly was also the author of the website savetheplanetprotest.com, where he demanded that the Discovery Channel broadcast programmes that would help “to save the planet”.

Well Mr. Insano met the Washington D.C. hostage negotiation team whom promptly shot the dumbass dead. Case closed.

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Unless you’re the National Rifle Association (NRA) apparently. The Gun Rights Examiner has a piece talking about how the NRA is taking credit for the recent McDonald vs. Chicago case that incorporated the Second Amendment. The case was bankrolled and petitioned to the Supreme Court by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) but the NRA seems to ignore that fact when they talk about it. Both the NRA and the SAF had a case to bring to the Supreme Court and the head honchos of judiciary chose the SAF case. The NRA then petitioned and were granted shared time in the SAF case.

Needless to say in the NRA-ILA article that the Examiner was talking about didn’t both to mention SAF once. That is pretty dickish if I do say so myself. I think it’s about time I went and practiced my other privilege of being a member of the NRA, complain to the organization when they aren’t doing what they should be doing.

We Got You Your Favorite Thing, Disappointment

The new Kindle started shipping yesterday and I got my shipping notification! Woohoo! Oh wait:

The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:
——————————————————————–
Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal

———————————————————————

Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):

1 Kindle Leather Cover, Blac… $34.99 1 $34.99

Shipped via UPS

Tracking number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

———————————————————————
Item Subtotal: $34.99
Shipping and handling: $7.48

Total: $42.47

Paid by XXXXXXXXXXXX: $42.47

——————————————————————–

You have only been charged for the items sent in this shipment.
(Per our policy, you only pay for items when we ship them to you.)
The following items will ship separately, as soon as they’re available:
———————————————————————-
Qty Item Price Not Yet Shipped
———————————————————————-

1 Kindle Wireless Reading Devic $189.00 1

God damn it.

Charging Bloggers for a Business License

Did you real the title of this post and think to yourself that it contained one of the dumbest ideas ever conceived? If you did congratulations you’re the target audience of this site. If you didn’t think that I’m sorry to say but you probably aren’t going to enjoy reading this blog.

Apparently Philadelphia is charging bloggers a $300 for a privileged license. So it’s finally come down to it, the requiring of a license to practice your first amendment rights. It’s nice to see the analogy that is often used by us gun rights activists isn’t so far off.

According to the article the city of Philly wants you to buy a license the second you make any form of profit. At least I’d be exempt from this as I don’t make a nickle off of this site. Then again I don’t pay much to keep it going either, just a small yearly fee to WordPress for my customer domain name. Either way we have good old big government doing what it does best, fucking over the people it’s supposedly serving.

Remember Those Big Powerful Lobbyists

In the last post I mentioned one of the biggest arguments presented at last night’s event was the only way to stop lobbyists was to allow the government to regulate net neutrality. Guess what? The RIAA, one of the largest lobbyist holders in Washington, is jockeying to make net neutrality laws include filtering and the ability to spy on customer. Who called that one? That’s right I did.

This is why I don’t want government involved with the Internet in any way, shape, or form. Any company large enough can buy them and get whatever the Hell they want passed into law. At least with the ISPs in control (which I’ve mentioned is still going to fuck us over) I have the option of not paying for their service. An additional benefit is any deals groups such as the RIAA want to make will have to be done with each ISP separately. Did I mention that these deals won’t be law and thus ISPs will be free to not make those deals? Oh I didn’t? Well I did now.

Why I Love Gunnies

I love being a gunnie because we’re all sarcastic pricks. Borepatch points out a thread on AR15.com where an author made the following request:

For a book that I am writing, I am interested in meeting/interviewing people who cache weapons. To get a sense of who I am and where I come from, look at www.danbaum.com, and also see the August issue of Harper’s magazine, where I wrote a piece about concealed carry. If you’re interested in talking to me, please email danbaum@me.com. Thank you.

No I’m not taking the time to remove his e-mail address, I don’t protect the stupid. Of course he got the standard response which was ridicule and members digging up the author’s anti-gun background.

On MNGunTalk we have a fellow drop by with the following request:

hey there. I have been assigned a project for my social behaviors class that involves me examIning a subculture of modern day society. I figured what better subculture to study than that of the gun buff. What i need to find out is what draws people to your subculture, what esablishes leaders and influances power withing said subculture, and any flaws or drawbacks caused from being in this cultural group. So i guess what i need from you guys is your input on these questions. if you could help me out that would be great. at the end of the study this will all be compiled into a final research paper that i will turn in for a grade. thank you.

We’ve been giving him the standard response of sarcasm and correcting his atrocious spelling and grammar. This is why I love the gun community, everybody is a prick so I fit right in.