Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Ned Weatherby:

We all like to complain about the so-called “criminal justice system,” with DA offices just down the hallway from judges, ex parte conversations, prosecutorial discretion used for ill intent, pet peeves and politics, and on and on the list goes.  This is an example of how the system can be used for good.

We only have one Paypal address active (the one for the Arms Expo this summer), but people are donating to that link and just marking it for bail money.

http://www.arms-expo.com/?page_id=113

Or, you can send money to donations@arms-expo.com with Paypal, etc.

If you have any problems, let me know. kit@arms-expo.com

Thank you for this. I really appreciate it. And they do too.

And you certainly know folks that will be involved.  See also David at WoG on this same subject.

The Greenville News:

Jon Bailey spent a Friday afternoon over Christmas break taking his 13-year-old son, Connor, to shoot pistols at Allen Arms Indoor Range in Greenville.

He showed Connor how to load, aim and fire the weapon, but he also instructed him on what to do if he ever saw friends playing with a gun or found a gun lying around.

“He knows to get the heck out of the room and talk to adults,” Bailey said.

Bailey doesn’t call himself a gun fanatic. He wanted to demystify the idea of guns for his son.

But he does think more children should have knowledge of gun safety.

Who instructs children on the gun rights and safety has traditionally been left out of the state’s school systems, but bills pre-filed in both chambers of the South Carolina Legislature would bring gun rights squarely into focus in the classroom.

Whether schools are the right place to instruct students about firearms will be up for debate.

Zero-tolerance policies regarding guns at South Carolina schools has led to a backlash against citizens’ gun rights and a lack of knowledge on how to safely use firearms, Republican state legislators said as they prepared to open a new session in the state Legislature.

State social studies standards that instruct teachers to explain how the Constitution and Bill of Rights helps protect limited government. But schools don’t go far enough to explain gun rights, they said.

One bill — pre-filed in the state House — would create a Second Amendment Awareness Day to be held on Dec. 15 each year in all state schools, complete with a poster or essay contest centered on the theme “The Right To Bear Arms: One American Right Protecting All Others.”

Students — at every grade level — would receive at least three weeks of education on their gun rights based on a curriculum chosen by the state Department of Education and approved or recommended by the National Rifle Association.

[ … ]

His idea for the bill came after an incident in a Summerville high school in September where police were notified and a 16-year-old student’s locker searched after he wrote a fictional essay that mentioned purchasing a gun to kill his neighbor’s pet dinosaur.

The student was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after police said he became belligerent.

Clemmons said the incident “shocked” and “offended” him.

“In this case, it squelched a student’s first amendment rights, in responding to an assignment, to talk about the second amendment,” he said.

Students are being punished when they choose to “write about one of their precious American rights,” he said.

Rep. Garry Smith, R-Simpsonville, who co-sponsored the bill, along with Rep. Richard Yow, R-Chesterfield, said the second amendment deserves more instructional time than other amendments because it is the lynchpin for the rest of democracy.

This is all well and good, but I have a better idea.  If South Carolina citizens really want to teach children about the second amendment, then get rid of gun-hater and elitist establishment ruler S.C. State Senator Larry Martin (from Pickens) and institute open carry throughout South Carolina.  Patriots need to initiate a beat-down to establishment GOP in South Carolina.  Until then, it’s just all bluster and hot air to me.

During a recent trip.

David Codrea:

The thing is, transporting these children, sheltering them, feeding them, clothing them, bathing them and dealing with the waste they generate will all have an environmental impact, and while seemingly negligible compared to the totality of things, that’s added to the millions of heretofore illegal aliens already in the country now empowered to stay, and to those on their way, attracted by seeing “migrants” who came before them rewarded for lawbreaking. Their long-term impact as an aggregate on the environment and on the resources needed to provide energy, sustenance and disposal, can hardly be considered negligible. Nor can the immediate and continuing impact of environmental destruction left in their wake …

How much more of an impact will the president’s immigration directives have on the environment than the off-chance a person defending their life may (or may not) need to fire off rounds of ammunition that may (or may not) leave traces within national park boundaries? … Why not figure out the best jurisdiction to get an injunction halting Obama’s action until an environmental impact study can be completed.

Progressives are liars.  They pretend to care about the environement but don’t.  If they did, they would lobby for the startup of nuclear power plants.  Rather, progressives use their pretensions as a cudgel for their other causes.  As for the environmental impacts of immigration and lack of border security, we’ve discussed that here.  They don’t care.  Perhaps a judge can be found who would pay attention only to the law, but s/he wouldn’t care about the morality of the situation.

David Codrea:

 Obviously both of these individuals were not part of what the citizen disarmament cult disparages as “the gun culture,” as the lack of respect for even the most basic of safety rules indicated by the report points to people absolutely unfamiliar with basic rational gun-handling. The obvious ridiculous and senselessly dangerous way this woman evidently ended her own life unsurprisingly brought out ridicule-based comments, including predictable “Darwin Award” references.

“She deserved to die,” a gay Huffington Post reader from Yale weighed in. “Trailer lady deserved it.” Talk about tolerance and concern for “different” people of perceived lower economic status!

Progressives only pretend to care about the lower class.

From Uncle, here is a list of top handgun manufacturers.  I’m kind of surprised that Springfield Armory isn’t on the list.

Don Surber: Do not rebuild in Ferguson.  Yea, but when I said the same thing, I was somehow the devil.

News from the great progressive Northeast, via The Boston Globe:

MILFORD — On Friday, Milford fifth-grader Nickolas Taylor was in line for lunch, just a few hours from the weekend.

But like most 10-year-old boys bursting with energy, he didn’t wait quietly. Instead, he played shoot-em-up by himself to pass the time, pointing his index finger like a ray gun and making “pew-pew” sounds.

As he battled his imaginary foes, he passed two girls in the lunch line. They told the assistant principal, according to Nickolas’s father, Brian Taylor. Later that day, the principal told the boy he was being suspended for two days for making a threat.

Upset over the suspension, Brian Taylor, 40, said he went to the school Monday morning to meet with the assistant principal in hopes of explaining it was just “innocent playing.” But the official said Nickolas had pointed at the girls, which amounted to a threat.

“He just kept saying it was against policy,” the father said in an interview Wednesday at his Milford home. “He wouldn’t see the common sense.”

Taylor said he understood that schools were on heightened alert these days to any perceived threats or potential bullying, but he said the suspension was an extreme overreaction.

“He wasn’t pointing at anyone in particular,” he said. “He was just playing. There were other ways they could have handled it.”

Taylor said his son had never gotten in serious trouble before, and that he was confused by the punishment.

“He didn’t really understand why” he was suspended, Taylor said.

Taylor said he thought the girls must have been annoyed that his son cut in front of them, and he was surprised school officials didn’t simply tell Nickolas not to do it again.

Nickolas loves video games like Minecraft and told him that all the boys play pretend shooting games at recess, shouting laser-like sounds as they chase each other.

We live in a country where SWAT teams shoot little puppies running away from them, innocent victims are assaulted and shot in their own homes by the police, and it’s all okay.  But if a little boy plays like a little boy is supposed to, he has “threatened” little girls.  Notice too the lack of discretion and wisdom on display by school administration.  This reminds me of a comment I made to a younger reader on this same kind of thing, from the perspective of graying hair and many years of wisdom.

You’ve told me what IS, rather than what SHOULD BE. I fully concur with the notion that intent is increasingly disappearing from American jurisprudence due to laws and somewhat [from] prosecutorial discretion. Nothing I’ve said denies this. And in fact, this law would have been yet another example of that lamentable fact, and one of the hundreds of reasons to oppose this bill.

That said, it isn’t disappearing completely, as there is still a difference between manslaughter and first degree murder, and there always will be. Where the secularists can make inroads to English common law, they do. Where they can’t because the people would revolt, they leave it alone.

I know very little about you, but I assume (you can correct me if I’m wrong) that you do not have children of advanced school age (and I have no idea whether you are married). If your children one day attend public schools (I home schooled mine for the last several years except for one), they will find this notion in spades in the school system. Let me tell you how it plays out.

The kids that know they aren’t attending college know the kids who intend to attend college. The school system has given up on the idea of finding facts, finding fault and finding intent. Hence, the kids who have no intention of attending college abuse the ones who intend to attend college. It happens this way, and hundreds of others.

Let’s say that the school lunch line of a five minute wait. The bad kids will break in line and even punch the good kids. The good kids take it, run away, and avoid conflict at all costs. They do this because they know that the principal will make no attempt whatsoever to find facts or intent if a fight breaks out. Fights means that a kid is defending himself, or even that he isn’t and sits in a corner getting the hell kicked out of him. When it’s finally broken up, both kids get suspended, it goes on record, and colleges don’t accept kids with records. End of story. The competition is too high to accept kids with records, regardless of the fact that it’s disputed. All such records are disputed by every student.

My boys could have beat the hell out of anyone who they fought, but one of them needed to attend a scholarly college to do what he does, and for him we simply planned classes to avoid the bad kids, sent him with his lunch, and prayed that he got out without being in a … ahem … “fight.” Daniel, my Marine, just beat the hell out of anyone who accosted him. It cannot be that way for everyone. The ones who needs to go to college behave differently. Daniel is in college now because of the Marines.

You see, smarts comes from books. Wisdom comes from age and experience. I have that. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. And if you have children of advanced age one day, they will get the hell beaten out of them in school, or they will defend themselves and not go to college, or you will home school them. Welcome to fact-less, intent-less jurisprudence and lack of lawsuits against schools.

“He just kept saying it was against policy.”  Of course it was.  Everything is against policy for little boys.  They are the oppressors.

David Codrea:

Although recently set back at the national polls, Democrats could still dominate the legislative agenda on guns and other crucial issues for the next 10 months if the Republican leadership allows a long-term continuing resolution to pass, Gun Owners of America warned members Monday in a national action alert. If that happens, GOA cautioned it will “allow the repudiated Democrats currently in control of the Senate (until January 5) to make all of the spending and policy decisions [and] set policy and spending until the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2015).

Will the GOP go along to get along like they always do?  Codrea concludes:

That makes a recent “rare Capitol Hill appearance” suspect when the purpose of Christie’s visit was to encourage newly-elected lawmakers to “embrace compromise and common ground.” If those representatives heed the governor’s advice, they will pass the long-term CR GOA warns about, and give the Democrats what they want on all other issues as well, including and especially on guns.

Read all of David’s piece and share the link with others.  As for the legislative agenda on guns, it’s like everything else.  The GOP is in control of the House.  It’s that simple.  The GOP could stop anything they wanted, dead in its tracks, and without delay.  Nothing happens on Capital Hill without GOP concurrence.  So David is right to point out that the real threat lies within the GOP lack of will and principle.

Daily Caller:

Another video has resurfaced of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, this one showing the Obamacare architect speaking candidly about guns while claiming that the National Rifle Association is holding “hostage” President Barack Obama’s nominee for Surgeon General.

“By the way you have now permanently prevented yourself from winning a high elected office in the United States despite your charisma,” Harold Pollack told Gruber at the end of a three-part interview about Obamacare recorded in April, predicting the backlash Gruber is facing by months in advance.

“You know they’ll be playing this tape back in an endless loop with a guy with a deep voice in the background,” Pollack predicted.

Gruber doubled down, segueing from speaking openly about Obamacare to another topic.

“I’ll guarantee it further by highlighting that guns are a public health issue,” Gruber said.

Says the man who lives on the right side of town, in a pricey home, away from the unwashed masses.  Here is what I think is a public health issue: pampered, effete, urbanized, metro-sexual self proclaimed elitists.

Mike Vanderboegh: All this GOP triumphalism makes me want to puke.  Yea, me too.

So let’s administer a dose of reality to ourselves like a bad-tasting medicine.  The GOP has pledged to avoid ideological warfare with Obama.  Billionaire gun grabbers got their way in Washington, teaching them the lesson that if they spend enough money and find public too stupid to know any better, they can pass gun control and create the monster of all gun control monsters – a gun registry.

The television is so full of idiot GOP’ers talking about “secure the border first” … did you get that … first … that I can’t log them all.  In yet another bad sign, Colorado democrats won back two seats they lost in the recall elections over gun rights.  Magpul was right to relocate.  Speaking of stupid, recently elected Cory Gardner was on television last night smiling and talking about reducing national debt (upon which our horrible Keynesian, fractional reserve system is based) and – wait, don’t laugh – paying the debt.  That’s right, paying off the debt, as if such a thing is possible.  The U.S. has more unfunded liabilities than the total of the world’s wealth.  That means that we could send our Army and Marines to take over the rest of the world and confiscate all wealth across the globe, and it still wouldn’t be enough to pay all of our unfunded liabilities.  That’s how screwed we are.

Here’s what’s really going to happen.  The gun grabbers suffered a few defeats, but not enough.  They learned the wrong lessons with I-594, and they won’t stop.  They will never stop.  The fight isn’t over – it is never over.  Within the next two years, the GOP will do something to effect some sort of compromise on immigration, even if it’s doing nothing to stop Obama.  Secure the border first, will be the hue and cry, and then they will legitimize the illegals currently here for low wages for the corporations, those corporations relying on the middle class to supply the lower class illegals with medical care, SNAP, housing and anything else they need.  Corporate welfare will be what the public sees.  The GOP may as well write signs and hang them on their backs: “Monsanto Bitch.”  Or if you want, “Archer-Daniels-Midland Bitch.”  Because the GOP is owned and operated by the Chamber of Commerce.

We will continue down our road to increased debt and deficit spending, riding at 80 MPH towards the financial cliff rather than 100 MPH like Obama wants to go.  Nothing will change.  Got that?  Nothing.  This election changes nothing.  I’m sorry to ruin the party.