Month: February 2011

The Shall-Issue CCW Wave Began in Florida

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…and they’re still fighting the good fight.  Robb Allen emails:

As some of you may know, I am a board member for Florida Carry and we have been active in trying to get some new bills passed through here in the Sunshine state. You all comprise a wide group of readers, many of which may live here in God’s Waiting Room who might not read my blog. SB 234 is the largest piece of pro gun legislation we’ve seen since Shall Issue was pushed 24 years ago.

We’re beating back decades of anti-gun legislation and as more states are moving toward things like Shall Issue and Constitutional Carry, each win, regardless of state, helps the freedom of all.

Damned straight.

Do you live in Florida?  Drop by and read Robb’s post on the carry reform bill now in committee, and swing by Florida Carry too.

I Wish I’d Written That

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Via Improved Clinch, please take a few minutes and read Moral Communism at Counting Cats in Zanzibar.  Excerpt:

If they try to communise the economy directly, there is an enormous body of “right wing” economic theory that can knock down their plans. So instead, they go for a two stage process. First of all, they persuade people that some Damned Thing is immoral. Then they show that the free market allows or encourages that immoral thing. Then they can say, “well, we wish we didn’t have to do this, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to intervene in that part of the economy, to stop the Damned Thing, sorry”. This leaves the free marketeer floundering around having to try to justify the continuance of the Damned Thing in the name of some nebulous “liberty”. And then they say, “so your selfish desire for “liberty” means this Damned Thing must go on?” and you lose the argument in public, because most of the audience have been persuaded that there is a moral crisis that must be addressed, and you are a heartless asshole who just doesn’t care.

RTWT.  Seriously.

Ammo Recall Alert

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I’m sure you’ve seen this elsewhere, but if not:

FEDERAL and AMERICAN EAGLE
45 AUTO PRODUCT SAFETY WARNING
Immediate Action Required

Certain lots of recently manufactured 45 Auto ammunition may contain an incorrect propellant charge. Use of product from these lots may result in firearm damage and possible serious injury.

DO NOT USE PRODUCT FROM THE FOLLOWING LOTS:

If you have in your possession any 45 Auto with the following brand names and part numbers, check to see if your ammunition package contains the above lots:

  • American Eagle®(AE45A, AE45N1, or AE45A250)
  • Champion™ (WM5233), GoldMedal®(GM45B)
  • Hi-Shok ®(45C, 45D)
  • Federal® Personal Defense ®(C45C, C45D)

Example below:


THIS WARNING APPLIES ONLY TO THE LOTS LISTED ABOVE.

If you possess ammunition from any of these lots, or have questions concerning this warning, please contact us at 1-800-831-0850 or 1-800-322-2342 and ask for Product Service. Federal will provide replacement product and will cover the cost of returning the affected product.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Dicta! It’s Just Dicta!

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Obiter dictum (noun, Latin):  An opinion voiced by a judge that has only incidental bearing on the case in question and is therefore not binding.

Where There’s a William makes a fascinating legal connection between two points brought up here:  the finding that Obamacare is unconstitutional by United States District Court of Northern Florida the and the Seventh Circuit’s 1982 decision in Bowers v. DeVito that I excerpted as Quote of the Day a couple of days ago.

Will’s point is perfectly logical and rational, so of course it must be wrong!  I can see the Left screaming that the Bowers declaration that

The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone

is merely dicta, and not binding on any court.

Or, as Nancy Pelosi put it, “Are you serious?  Are you serious?“

Edited to add:

No less a Constitutional scholar than our President, Barack Obama concurs with the court’s interpretation of the Constitution in Bowers:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swfLonger excerpt available on YouTube.

Quote of the Day

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Another one by Salim Mansur, via Glenn:

As Martin Walker, then the Moscow correspondent for the Guardian, reported in August 1992, Arbatov said to him: “We are going to do the worst thing we possibly can to America — we are going to take away their enemy.” Arbatov, you might recall, was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, responsible for keeping track of Soviet-American relations.


Arbatov — now looking back nearly twenty years later in deconstructing his words — seemed to possess a piercing understanding, as student of history, of the American scene, and how it could likely unfold over time in the post-Soviet and post-Communist era. His words to Walker were more insightful than any offered by just about all the left-leaning talking heads and commentators, in the U.S., Canada, and Europe put together. Arbatov understood, given his experience sitting in the privileged seat of the party in Moscow during the Brezhnev period, how the existence of Communist Russia checked the forces of the left in the West, keeping them from gaining influence and power. Now, as Arbatov reflected, since the Soviet Union as a military superpower had collapsed and the threat of Soviet Communism was discarded in the so-called dustbin of history, the spoiled children and beneficiaries of the West’s longest and strongest economic expansion and technological achievements, unparalleled in history, would set forth to do what the Soviet Union could not do — to advance the aim of Communism to wreck liberal capitalism from the inside.

RTWT

I Got Nothin’

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Not precisely true.  There are several things I should be posting about, but I can’t work up the enthusiasm to actually do it.  Sorry, but the free ice cream machine’s busted.  Try again tomorrow.

Want to See Some “High Capacity Magazines” in Use?

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My monthly bowling pin match is coming up this Sunday at the Tucson Rifle Club. Same setup as last month, with three-abreast shooting positions, double-double-elimination, centerfire and .22 long-rifle classes (handgun only) with .38 Special being the smallest centerfire caliber acceptable. Most shooters seem to prefer “standard capacity” Wondernine pistols of some tactical tupperware persuasion or another. 

If you’re new to the sport, a detailed description is available here.

Sign-up starts at 8:30AM, first rounds downrange about 9:00 or so. We should be done before noon. Bring plenty of ammo. Hollowpoint and flat-point works better than round-nose or FMJ at carrying pins off the tables.  Pretty much any .22 round works on the pin tops, if you can hit them.

See you Sunday!

Quote of the Day – Seventh Circuit Edition

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In keeping with the post below:

There is a constitutional right not to be murdered by a state officer, for the state violates the Fourteenth Amendment when its officer, acting under color of state law, deprives a person of life without due process of law. Brazier v. Cherry, 293 F.2d 401, 404-05 (5th Cir. 1961). But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone

Bowers v. DeVito (1982)

Found initially at Another Gun Blog, where Mike W. has some important things to say on the topic.

Gun Control Legislation

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… what politicians do instead of Something.

So Democrat members of the Arizona legislature have introduced a bill, HB2711, to ban the possession of any

… magazine, drum, feed strip or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than ten rounds of ammunition but does not include an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition.

The fifteen round magazines for my 1935-designed Browning HiPower? Verboten. The fifteen round magazines for my M1 Carbine? Nyet. The seventeen round magazines for my .38 Super Witness? Ditto. The twenty round magazines for my M25? A definite no-no. The twenty and thirty round magazines for my two AR-15’s? (Oddly, I have no pictures of those…) Definitely too frightening for the congresscritters.

Here’s a clue Representatives Farley, Chabin, Hale, Hobbs, Miranda R, Tovar, Wheeler, Ableser, Alston, Arredondo, Gonzales, Heinz, McCune Davis, Meyer, Miranda C, Saldate, Senators Aboud, Cajero Bedford, Lopez, and Gallardo:

You can’t have mine. Aside from the fact that I have invested several hundred dollars in acquiring them, I am no threat to the general public and neither are they.

You. Can’t. Have. Them.

I am a law-abiding citizen without so much as a moving violation on my record for the last fifteen years. I pay a LOT of taxes. And I vote.

And you want to make me a criminal because a nut-case went on a shooting spree.

Ask yourselves if that’s something you really want to do.

Of course it isn’t. It’s political grandstanding. The Arizona legislature is majority Republican, and these people know there isn’t a snowball’s chance that this bill will get passed, but it does give them a holier-than-thou soapbox to stand atop and it tells people who ought to know better what their so-called “representatives” think of the peons who put them there.

We’re winning, but we’re not done by a long shot.  (No pun intended.)