Quote of the Day – NRA Overreach Edition

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Quote of the Day – NRA Overreach* Edition

The NRA, the same people who tried to derail Parker v. D.C. (which later became D.C. v. Heller) has announced that the Supreme Court has granted their motion to allow them to participate in the upcoming oral argument of McDonald v. Chicago. The email I received this morning states:

“We are pleased with the Court’s decision to grant our motion,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. “NRA’s solitary goal in McDonald is to ensure that that our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms applies to all law-abiding Americans, regardless of the state in which they live. We are hopeful that the Court will share our view that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly intended to apply the Second Amendment to the States.”

It goes on to say that the NRA will be represented by former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement.

According to The Volokh Conspiracy, there’s been a little exchange between Clement and Heller litigator Alan Gura:

The end of the (Blog of Legal Times) post includes some interesting commentary by both Clement and Gura. First, Clement comments:

“I think the grant of the NRA’s motion may signal that the Court is interested in ensuring that all the avenues to incorporation, including the due process clause, are fully explored at the argument. Of course, I look forward to working with Alan.”

Gura responds, showing his typical civility and grace:

“The suggestion that I wouldn’t present all the arguments to the Court was uncalled for. I hope that this time Paul understands that handgun bans are unconstitutional.“

As the BLT notes, the dig against Clement reflects the brief he filed as Solicitor General in 2007 arguing on behalf of the United States that the D.C. handgun ban was not necessarily unconstitutional.

The bolded portion is today’s QotD. Give ’em hell Alan!

(* In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Patron member of the NRA. That’s two steps above Life and one below Benefactor. But I hardly think they walk on water and their farts don’t stink.)

They’re Dropping Like Leaves

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Just damn. Robert B. Parker has died, and I just found out about it. Last year we lost Michael Crichton.

I have said that three authors bear primary responsibility for my socio-political outlook: Robert A. Heinlein, John D. MacDonald, and Robert B. Parker. These three men wrote books about how men ought to behave – Heinlein in damned near everything, MacDonald with his Travis McGee series, and Parker with his Spenser books. I’ve enjoyed Parker’s other works, but I’ve collected every one of the Spenser series so far (one more is due out this year), even the later ones of questionable quality. Like David and Jerry, I believe his best work was An Early Autumn, the one Spenser novel I got my wife to read, and she said she liked.

Damn, no more Spenser, no more Hawk, no more Belsen, Quirk, Sunny Randall, Jesse Stone.

Just damn. Another good storyteller gone.

UPDATE: In a related bit, Roberta X points, via Alger, to where SciFi author Sarah A. Hoyt waxes eloquent on Robert Anson Heinlein and his effect on her life. Ms. Hoyt is one of those who is an American because she thinks she’s American:

…more important than his themes or his political inclinations, or his preoccupation of the moment was his determination that the human mind should be free…free to examine and discover. Free to know. Free to find the truth. Which is why I perceived him—first in rejection, and later in embrace—as the quintessential American writer. His values were—always—of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The primacy of the individual over the state or the church or the coercive group. It could be argued that having been educated in Heinlein I had to become an American citizen. In fact, had become one, in all but name and law long before I landed on these shores.

Welcome, Ms. Hoyt, and to all the others out there who are “willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us.”

Quote of the Day – Politics Edition

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This is not the QotD, it’s the prelude:

President Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he has said of himself: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” (”The Audacity of Hope.”) It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And, as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was shrewdly crafted to perpetuate such confusion.

Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious – it is brazenly ingenuous. — Tony Blankley, The Washington Times, Obama’s Blank Screen, 1/27/2009

THIS is the QotD:

When folks on the left or center-left express disillusionment and dismay that President Obama hasn’t governed as some sort of pragmatic non-ideologue who unites the country, takes the middle road, and keeps the pork and yuck out of government, it seems to me that the fault lies not with Obama. It lies with the people who bizarrely believed Obama would do otherwise in the first place.

There was never any objective, factual basis for believing that President Obama would be any other way than what we are seeing. Apparently, a large chunk of Obama’s voting base consisted of people who invented some sort of counterfactual, reality-immune fantasy in their head and then voted for that fantasy when ticking ‘Obama’ on their ballots. I’m sure there are plenty of valid criticisms to be made of President Obama, but the fact that the real President Obama doesn’t correspond to naive, irrational voters’ fantasies doesn’t strike me as one of them. — Rhymes with Cars and Girls, The Disillusioned Center-Left’s Case Against Obama: He’s Just Not Living Up To All That Stuff We Made Up About Him In Our Heads

In the run-up to the election, no one was interested in objective, fact-based analysis of candidate Obama – least of all the media, whose job it (normally) is to provide such analysis. Instead, they too projected what they wanted upon his blank screen, and thrills ran up their legs when he spoke, regardless of whatever duplicitous, disingenuous words emerged from his mouth.

In the words of a man Obama once swore he could not disown (but later did), Obama’s CHICKENS, are coming home to ROOST!

Not that it’ll make much of a difference.

Hat tip to Vanderleun for the second quote, who adds in another piece:

I’d like to get off of Obama as a constant subject. I really would. It’s just that the man is a walking, non-talking, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, gaffe and lie machine. I’ve been watching presidents since Eisenhower and I’ve never seen one one-tenth as twisted as this one.

And we’ve got three more years of this to look forward to.

Cleaning/Organizing

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I should do it more often.

I’ve been cleaning up my reloading area, trying to sort through all the stuff I’ve accumulated over the past several years. I have reloading bench where I keep my dies, a lot of components and tools, and then I have a fairly sizeable cabinet on wheels where I keep more components, loaded ammo, etc. The place has gotten to be a real mess, and it finally hit that threshold that makes me want to clean it up and organize it.

I’ve found 50 rounds of .30 Carbine, 250 rounds of .45ACP and 200 rounds of .357 Magnum I didn’t know I had, plus fifteen rounds of 12 gauge 00 buck, and 100 Hornady 75 grain .224″ BHTP Match bullets I had no idea were in that cabinet. (They should have been in the reloading bench.) I have also discovered I have a LOT more .357 and .38 brass than I need, so I’ll be taking the excess with me to the range tomorrow next Sunday (match was rescheduled) to give away to whoever wants it. I even have a box of .44 Magnum brass, about 50 pieces. I haven’t owned a .44 Magnum in several years, and that was a T/C Contender barrel.

It’s like Christmas!

Happy 155th B’day, JMB!

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Happy 155th Birthday, John Moses Browning!

This is also the 101st anniversary of the Tottenham Outrage, which I posted about last year.

Given the fact that 2009 was a record-breaker for firearm sales in the United States (thanks Barry!), I’d say we’re safe for at least a few more years from America following (formerly) Great Britain down the civilian disarmament path. And while Tam extolls JMB’s classic M2 heavy machine-gun design, I have to give the nod to his timeless 1911 – a gun built by more manufacturers today than even the ubiquitous AK-47.

Someday that tank commander may have a pintle-mounted cyan-spewing 2-cm. tribarreled plasma cannon, but people will still be shooting Pepper Poppers with 1911s chambered in G_d’s own .45ACP.

(Edited to change the JMB’s age. He was born in 1855, not 1845. Thanks Chris.)

Quote of the Day – Peggy Noonan Edition

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Quote of the Day – Peggy Noonan Edition

Our national politics are reflecting what appears to be going on geologically, on the bottom of the oceans and beneath the crust of the Earth: the tectonic plates are moving.

America never stops moving now.

Massachusetts said, “Yes, we want change, but the change we want is not the change that has been delivered by the Democratic administration and the Democratic Congress. So we will turn elsewhere.”

We are in a postromantic political era. They hire you and fire you, nothing personal. Family connection, personal charm, old traditions, fealty to party, all are nice and have their place, but right now we are immersed in crisis, and we vote on policies that affect our lives.

The Lefty pundits are quick to point out that a majority of people want “health care reform.” What they avoid assiduously is that – at least until recently – a majority of Americans supported “gun control” too.

Until they saw the bills that were actually proposed. When they saw those, the response was overwhelmingly “Not THAT!!“ This is the reaction the House and Senate “Health Care Reform” bills have produced in the electorate:


And they won’t listen. They know better. Well, the election of Scott Brown just got their attention.

Your Morning Kipling

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Your Morning Kipling

I found this Kipling poem by way of Your Philosophy Sucks. Being an engineer, this one speaks to me. I’m including the Editor’s introduction from the link, too:

There is more than one kind of aristocracy.

Luke tells us the story: Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, were entertaining Jesus and his disciples. Martha rushed about the kitchen and household, seeing to the cooking, bringing wash basins, changing towels, and doing the other things needful when one’s home has been unexpectedly invaded by a celebrity and his entourage.

“Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

“And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus feet, and heard his word.

“But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me.

“And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou are careful and troubled about many things:

“But one thing is needful: Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

(Luke 10:38-42)

Much has happened since then; but Rudyard Kipling tells us, we sons of Martha have yet to pay the final reckoning.

Imperial Stars Vol. I: The Stars at War, Jerry Pournelle, ed. p. 227

The Sons of Martha
Rudyard Kipling 1907
The sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited
that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the
careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she
was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without
end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and
cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that
the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care
to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by
land and main.

They say to mountains, “Be ye removed.” They say to
the lesser floods, “Be dry.”
Under their rods are the rocks reproved-they are not
afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit-then is the
bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly
sleeping and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves’ end where they piece
and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry
behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into
his terrible stall,
And hale him forth a haltered steer, and goad and turn
him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till
death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden – under the
earthline their altars are-
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to
restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again
at a city’s drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a
little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop
their job when they dam’-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark
and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s
day may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path
more fair or flat –
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha
spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness
to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their
common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed – they
know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for
them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet – they hear the Word – they see
how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and – the
Lord He lays it on Martha’s Sons!
Enjoy the rest of your day!