David E. Petzal - The Gun Nut

Some Random Thoughts on the Election

“And I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, ‘Come and see,’ and I looked and beheld a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”—from The Book of Revelation

“It is already dark in Moscow, and soon it will be dark here. I wonder: shall we see the light again in our lifetimes?”—Freidrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, in the movie Conspiracy

*It could have been worse. We could have gotten Hillary, and with her the same politics as Obama plus that voice braying at us for four years. On the other hand, I will miss the excellent antics of Bubba turned loose in the White House with no one in charge of him.

*Obama says he respects the Second Amendment.  And I am Ferdinand, King of Romania.

*We are probably not going to see any gun legislation for a while. Obama and Biden will have their hands full with the coming depression and our two wars, plus energy, plus who knows what else. Also, it will take Congress a while to figure out who is who in the pecking order, who gets to steal what and how much, etc.

*Eventually, however, they will get brave and propose something really hellish in the way of gun legislation. This may not come until Obama’s second term, assuming he gets one, but it will be a doozer.

*When it does come, if there is a fight over it, we can take some small comfort from the fact that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are two of the most ineffectual people ever to suck on the public tit.

*A gun dealer friend called and said that this past Saturday was the biggest day he has had in over 30 years in business. Much of what he sells is black rifles in one form or another, plus Class III goodies. “All the liberals who voted for Obama are scared to death they won’t be able to get guns once he takes office,” he says.

*In the weeks to come, we are likely to see an unprecedented run on any semi-automatic or quasi-military gun, plus magazines, ammo, and anything else that Joe Biden may not want us to have. As I’ve said before, hoard now and beat the rush.

*At the suggestion of one of our more intelligent contributors, I am appointing Ms. Elisha Cuthbert the Official Gun Nut Babe.

*Smile. What else can you do?

Petzal: Obama and NRA Ads

I pass this bit of news along for what it's worth, being unable to vouch for the accuracy of the source (or lack thereof). You are free to draw your own conclusions.

David E. Petzal's Guide to the Presidential Election

Fellow Americans, bloggers, and bitter gun clutchers: In the past tumultuous weeks, I have been asked:

"How does an educated man like yourself, a person of taste, culture, and intellect, a registered Independent since 1964, support the Republican ticket over the Democrat? How can you be a one-issue voter?"

Or, more directly: "Have you lost your f*****g mind?"

My friends, I am paid to write about guns, hunting, and politics as it applies to guns and hunting. My mandate does not extend further. Because of this, I'm a captive of circumstance. The Democrats nominated an atrocious pair of anti-gunners, and the Republicans nominated one neutral and possibly the strongest pro-gun candidate ever. All I can do is report on what they say; however, this does not mean I've ignored their other qualifications, or lack thereof. So, lest I be thought shallow and superficial, here is how I rank the four candidates, quite apart from firearms.

Overall, the situation was summed up by Carl Hiaasen, who said of another election that you could throw a net over a park bench and do better. In a time when we stand in greater peril than ever before, the men and women who really could do the job are not stepping forward. What persons with an ounce of self-respect would subject themselves to being a presidential or vice-presidential candidate in the year 2008?

But, my fellow Americans, lest I be thought superficial, here is a brief summation of each candidate as I see him or her:

John McCain: A mid-20th-century man trying to get a handle on the 21st century and failing. Sort of like me. However, I know how to send an e-mail. He is about as interested in gun legislation as he is in acquiring a third wife with no money.

Sarah Palin: I would go moose hunting with her any day, but as for the rest of it…

Barack Obama: Our best orator in years, provided he has a teleprompter. He ran a fine campaign against Hillary, who ran a terrible campaign. His major qualification seems to be the 143 days he has spent in the Senate.

Joe Biden: I had thought of him as merely one more spavined Senate hack. However, he is proving himself to be a major buffoon. I expect that any day now, he will claim he owns the laptop on which Lincoln composed the Gettysburg Address. Biden has it in him, if elected, to take his place alongside Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew in the pantheon of Truly Embarrassing Vice Presidents.

And so, my friends, let me close by borrowing a page from blogger Clay Cooper, and present you with three quotes that sum things up with an eloquence far greater than my own:

"The party's over."—Willie Nelson

"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."—Thomas Jefferson

"And in that time shall men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them."—The Book of Revelations

"Things fall apart. The center cannot hold."--W.B. Yeats

Thank you, and good night. And will the last person out please turn off the lights?

Petzal: Is Joe Biden a Closet Gun Lover?

Former President Bubba did his turn in a duck blind, John Kerry embarrassed himself on a trap field, and Hillary turned into Little Miss Sure Shot, so I guess it was inevitable that Joe Biden would join this farcical parade. This past Saturday, in a speech at Castlewood, Va., according to a report by NBC’s Mike Memoli:

“The Delaware senator predicted that Republicans would seek to sway voters by threatening that Obama would take away guns. Biden, claiming to be a gun owner himself who likes ‘that little over and under,’ called that notion bogus.

“’Barack Obama ain’t* taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey,’ he said. ‘If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.’”

Joe Biden has an F rating from the NRA/ILA, and is on the short list of the Senate’s most rabid anti-gunners, so this came as something of a surprise, and raises a number of points:

The Republicans have so far not brought up the Obama/gun issue in a meaningful way. What are they waiting for?

I doubt if President Obama would try to take his Vice President’s shotguns. It doesn’t work that way. Bush did not take away Cheney’s Perazzi after the unpleasantness in Wyoming.

If President Obama does try to fool with Vice President Biden’s Beretta, what is the nature of his “problem?” Is this a “cold, dead hands” sort of thing?

President Obama might not fool with your Beretta, provided that it’s an over/under like Biden’s. If It happens to be a semiauto, however, don’t get too attached to it.

*Biden, like Hillary and Obama, seems compelled to dumb down his speech when he’s before a rural audience. I doubt if he says “ain’t” when he’s on the Senate floor. Hillary (Wellesley, Yale Law) sounds Like Granny Moses on The Beverly Hillbillies when she tries this stunt.

**TWO CORRECTIONS**

Mr. Tommy MC of Wyoming, a person of the very highest literary and moral worth and possessor of a fund of worthless information as vast as my own or greater, points out that polar bears are not pale yellow. In fact, their fur is translucent, and takes on the color of whatever background the bear is posing against.

It has also been pointed out that the Wretched Cheney Episode took place in Texas, not Wyoming. I regret the errors and apologize to all bloggers and to their progeny six generations removed.

City Park Gun Ban Struck Down in Ohio

Editor's Note: As the apocalypse looms and we all draw nearer to the edge of The Pit, here's a little bit of good news, and our thanks to blog regular "Jack" for sending it. --DP

David -
BIG NEWS in Ohio this morning.

Ohio Supreme Court strikes down gun ban in city parks. This is a great victory.

This case originated about 40 miles from my home.  The village of Clyde Ohio had passed an ordinance banning dangerous weapons in city parks after Ohio's state legislature adopted our concealed carry law.  The concealed carry law in Ohio included an explicit list of where weapons could be banned in Ohio.  Public parks were not on that list, but cities like Clyde, Toledo and others went ahead and banned them.

The Supreme Court of Ohio said Ohioans For Concealed Carry are correct in their assertions - government may not ban guns in parks.

Regards,
Jack

Petzal: Our Pal Joey?

A little while ago, I stated that Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) was one of the very worst anti-gun Senators. Now, my fellow Americans, in the waning hours before the Second Great Depression, I think it is time for specifics.

If you go to Senator Biden’s website, you will not find anything about gun control. (At least I could not find anything.) What you will find is a photo of Sen. Biden with Former President Bubba and his then-attorney general, Janet Reno, the nice lady who brought us the Waco massacre.

So what follows is taken from the NRA/ILA website, which has been keeping track of Pal Joey (and if you would like to read more, you can do so by Googling NRA/ILA Joe Biden).  Biden is not merely one of the many-termed hacks who have done their share to make the Senate a joke; he is a true mover and shaker when it comes to chipping away at the Second Amendment. Sen Biden:

*Supports a renewal on the 1994 Clinton gun ban. Sen. Biden’s current bill (S. 2237) includes 200 (more or less) makes and models of semi-auto rifles, shotguns, and handguns.
*Is credited by the Brady campaign as being “…a consistent supporter.”
*Has voted to ban semi-automatic firearms, ban various types of hunting, sporting, and self-defense ammunition, ban magazines holding more than 10 rounds, and impose a waiting period on handgun sales.
*Refused—along with Sen. Obama—to sign the legal brief opposing the D.C. gun ban before Heller went before the Supreme Court. More than 300 members of Congress did sign.
*Proposed in a Senate bill (S. 1970) in 1989 to ban the AR-15 as an “assault weapon,” named eight similar firearms as “assault weapons,” and authorized the BATF to recommend to Congress any other firearms, regardless of type, to be banned as “additional assault weapons.”

A busy fellow, no? You are free to think of him merely as the guy who steps on his crank once a week and gives Rush Limbaugh something to talk about, but if he gets to be Vice President, none of us will find him a bit funny. 

Petzal on Palin: Who Thought McCain was That Smart?

Governor Palin is almost too good to be true. She is a lifelong hunter, a Life Member of the NRA, a dedicated jock, mother of a soldier who will be deployed to Iraq next month, a person who actually knows something about oil exploration, and perhaps most important, an Alaska Republican who is serious about honesty in public office. The odds on finding one of these are about the same as finding an honest Democratic politician from New Jersey. Her only drawback seems to be her background in journalism, but then no one is perfect.

I know very few people, including Repubicans, who are enthusiastic about John McCain. He seems to be tolerated only as an alternative to Obama*, who is intolerable to gun owners. There I was, prepared to hold back my rising gorge and vote for Old John M. and whatever lame hack he selected as Veep, and here he comes up with someone that I can actually be enthusiastic about from any number of standpoints, never mind guns and hunting. I wish Senator McCain and Governor Palin all success.

*About last night’s speech: I didn’t watch it. I have been leery of speeches since I watched John F. Kennedy’s inaugural in January 1961, when he promised that we would pay any cost, bear any burden, and oppose any foe in the defense of freedom. What we got was Vietnam.  The only truly prophetic part of the Inaugural was when the lectern caught on fire; there was a sign if ever there was one. Speeches are theatre, nothing more. Perhaps the only honest one in history was Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, in which he said, essentially, “You wanted a war and you got it. How do you like it?”

Petzal: The F-Team

In the September issue of American Rifleman, on page 40,  you’ll find a highly edifying bind-in card set entitled “Barack Obama’s Ten-Point Plan to ‘Change’ the Second Amendment.” Based on how he has voted in the past, both in the Illinois Legislature and in the Senate, and what he has said in public about gun control, it reads like this:

1) Ban use of firearms for home defense.
2) Pass Federal laws eliminating right to carry.
3) Ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns.
4) Close down 90 percent of the gun shops in America.
5) Ban rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting.
6) Increase federal taxes on guns and ammunition by 500 percent.
7) Restore voting rights for 5 million criminals including those who have been convicted of using a gun to commit a violent crime.
8) Expand the Clinton semi-auto ban to include millions more firearms.
9) Mandate a government-issued license to purchase a firearm.
10) Appoint judges to the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal judiciary who share his views on the Second Amendment.

If you’d like to check the documentation for all this, go to www.nraila.org/Obama.

As if this weren’t enough, Obama has selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate. Biden does not get all the credit he deserves as an anti-gunner, but he ranks right up there with Senators Schumer, Clinton, Boxer, and Feinstein as one of the very worst. Both Obama and Biden are rated “F” by the NRA/ILA.

You may not care for John McCain’s memory lapses, or his wife’s seven homes, or the fact that he can’t work a computer (these are actually pluses as far as I’m concerned), but as far as gun control goes, I think this election is about as clear cut as it gets.

What's Wrong with this Picture?

One of the fringe benefits to last week's Supreme Court decision was Friday’s editorial in The New York Times, a newspaper that unfailingly  hits new heights of hysteria at anything remotely favorable to gun owners. The Times’ view of America, at least as far as firearms are concerned, is apocalyptic. Heller will unleash armed mobs; the end is near.

It reminds me of Alexander Hamilton’s quote: “The people, sir, is a beast.”

From Friday’s Times editorial page we get:
“This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.”

Not bad. On the Gun Nut Hysteriameter I give it an 8.5 out of a possible 10. Now we jump to page E1, the Weekend Arts section, where we come to the review of a new movie titled “Wanted,” and this amazing description:

“A man has soared onto the roof of a high rise where he has laid a handful of others to waste. Suddenly the camera cuts to his face as a bullet exits his head in slow motion, his skin stretching forward as the projectile tears through it going straight for the camera and our already numbed skulls. Well, that’s one way to get the attention of fickle movie goers…”

Is that what it is? I might have thought it was senseless glorification of violence to make a buck, glamorizing killing and inviting some of the halfwit jerks who watch this stuff to try it themselves. I might have thought it was the kind of thing that the Times Editorial page might condemn, except that on page 11 of the same section is a ¾-page, four-color ad for “Wanted,” for which said paper was paid a whole bunch of money. And as we are all aware, this is a very tough year for newspapers.

So I guess I will not hold my breath waiting for that particular editorial.

A Hit From The Supremes

“It was a damned near-run thing.”—Arthur, Lord Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, on the Battle of Waterloo, at which the English came very close to getting their asses whipped by Napoleon.

Well, this was a damned near-run thing. We averted disaster by one vote. If the Supremes had found against Mr. Heller and held that the Second Amendment refers only to militias, the future would be grim beyond imagining. We will, in all likelihood, have an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress and a President named Obama. In the face of a defeat for our side, the new congress would draw up a really hellish anti-gun bill, and Obama would sign it immediately. Democrats can’t help it; it’s genetic.

Justice Scalia (who, as I recall, went duck hunting with Dick Cheney and survived) wrote the majority opinion, holding that the right to self-defense is an intrinsic part of Article II and, in the process declared unconstitutional Washington’s idiotic rule that all guns in the home must be disassembled or have trigger locks on them.

We got a very, very big break today, but Sarah Brady will not go away, and Hillary Clinton will forget that she is supposed to be Annie Oakley, and Chuck Schumer and Michael Bloomberg will still be doing business at the same stand. If you would like to do something to celebrate, send some money to the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. Armed with the Heller decision, the ILA will be fighting to roll back some of our more idiotic gun laws. And they have a long, long list to choose from.

Some Political Notes

Does anyone remember Martha Mitchell? She was the wife of John Mitchell, who was Attorney General under Richard Nixon and went to prison for his involvement in Watergate. As the coverup started to unravel, Martha would get a few drinks in her and start calling newspapers with all sorts of interesting stuff about who was lying about what, and it got so bad that her husband allegedly had her sedated and kept prisoner in a motel room.
Bill Clinton seems to be rapidly going out of control, and if Hillary becomes the nominee for Vice President,  we may see Secret Service agents tailing him with a hypodermic needle. What worked on Martha Mitchell may also quiet down Bubba. It's worth a try; nothing else has succeeded so far.

****
In 1992, Clinton's opponent for president was George H.W. Bush, who was viewed by a considerable number of gun supporters as too moderate, and they withheld their votes. This contributed to eight years of Clintons in the White House. John McCain has his weak spots as far as the Second Amendment is concerned, but he is infinitely better than Obama.

****
Now that Hillary has morphed into Annie Oakley it might be helpful to see what she thought before she became the Shooter's Best Pal:

"I will work to reinstate the assault weapons ban….I will also work to make sure that police departments get access to federal information that will enable them to track illegal guns…." 4/16/08

"I believe that every new handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry…." 6/2/00

"[after Columbine] Bill and I announced a proposal to raise the legal age of handgun ownership to 21, and limit purchases of handguns to one a month."  11/1/03

****
And from Barack Obama:

"…I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right…" 4/16/08

"I think it is a scandal that this president [Bush] did not authorize a renewal of the assault weapons bill." 10/21/04

So Who Knows? Politics, Presidents, and the Second Amendment

I feel obliged, as the presidential race becomes somewhat clearer, to weigh in with whatever semi-useful insights I have.

* Hillary is apparently finished as a presidential candidate. This is good news for us. All her Second Amendment b.s. aside, she despises guns and gun owners. A friend of mine at the National Shooting Sports Foundation ranks her and Chuck Schumer as the two senators who hate the Second Amendment most.

* Barack Obama doesn't hate guns or gun owners, but he doesn't see why there should be guns or gun owners, and would vote for any anti-gun law that landed on his desk. He might consider special exemptions for bitter rural people, but who knows?

* John McCain this past week went to the NRA Convention and revealed what a hell of a pro-gunner he is. However, if John McCain thought it would win him the election, he would go to the NRA and eat his grandchildren at the General Members' Meeting. The temptation, therefore, is to assume that McCain is just shining us on; however, he has the uncomfortable habit of speaking the truth every now and then.

* On the other hand, when he does this, he immediately panics and changes his story. So who knows?

* In 2009, Congress will almost certainly be controlled by Democrats.

* However, Congress will remain just as gutless and feckless as it was under the Republicans. So who knows?

* The Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment is due next month. Any laws proposed by Congress will have to take into account what the Supremes say, pro or con. So who knows?

I am going off to look at photos of Ms. Jaime Pressley.

--- In response to overwhelming demand, here is a photo of Ms. Jaime Pressly. Ms. Pressly has the power to cloud mens' minds. If you feel dizzy or faint, stop looking immediately and switch to a photo of Rosie O'Donnell until your system returns to normal.

Home on the Range?

As you’re all aware, Hillary Clinton has become the Second Amendment’s Best Friend in the past few weeks; so much so, in fact, that she is thinking of opening a series of franchised shooting schools, starting in the Southwest—just in case things don’t work out in her current job. The trick to creating a successful franchise is to come up with something unique, and I have been contracted to provide ideas that would set these schools apart. Here are my ideas:

*All attendees will be flown in by C-47, which will make a corkscrew landing at the school airport.

*To create a realistic environment, recordings of imaginary sniper fire will be played at all times.

*All attendees will wear pantsuits.

*All attendees will run (or waddle, as the case may be) between classes to avoid imaginary sniper fire.

*When not actually engaged in classes, attendees will play pinochle.

*Attendees who are selected to shoot first in any class are entitled to whine about it.

*Female attendees whose husbands exhibit signs of incipient mental illness are entitled to a 20 percent discount.

That’s what I’ve come up with. What are your suggestions?

Our Supreme Moment

This week the Supreme decides whether we can have guns or not. For the first time since 1934, the Highest Court is going to rule on whether Article II of the Bill of Rights allows individuals to keep and bear arms, or whether only well-regulated militias can keep and bear them, or whether only Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) can keep and bear them.

The case itself is a challenge to Washington D.C.'s draconian gun control law, which can best be described as a raging failure. Congresspersons, high-level government functionaries, Supreme Court Justices, and ranking media figures do not get held up or murdered an awful lot. Ordinary people in D.C., however, have good reason to fear.

The D.C. law is being challenged as unconstitutional. If the Supremes find it so, we are told, we can all rush out and buy MP-5s. If they find for the District of Columbia, we are warned that assorted jackbooted thugs will immediately begin kicking in doors, frightening old people into heart attacks, stomping on kittens and puppies, and taking every gun they can lay their hands on, legal or not.

Except, that we are talking about THE LAW here, and nothing about THE LAW is ever clear, simple, and unambiguous. However it finds, the Supreme Court will then have to delineate some kind of guidelines on how far the individual's right extends, and on how far the government may go in enforcing controls on guns. This is where the real nut-cutting will take place.

If our side wins (whatever a "win" is), that does not mean we can assume that the long nightmare is over. Sarah Brady, et al, will never quit and never go away.

But if the DC law prevails, I would not rush out in the dark of night to bury my firearms. The Feds have equipment that can overfly a chunk of real estate and find a hairpin buried 50 feet deep. Or so I am told.

Why the NRA Should Try Being Reasonable

... Give Up Asking for Money, Ect.

I am indebted to a Mr. Bill Heavey of Virginia for putting me on to an editorial that ran in The Washington Post on Sunday, Dec. 16th. It's titled "The NRA's Main Target? Its Members' Checkbooks," and is written by one Richard Feldman, who worked as a representative for the NRA from 1984 until 1997.

Mr. Feldman makes two points:

First: "In the NRA's lexicon, 'compromise' is a dirty word, code for gun owners surrendering their rights while getting nothing in return from gun-control advocates."

Second: "…the NRA itself…has become intoxicated with money and privilege. The leadership has lost sight of its mission. Safeguarding the rights of gun owners has become secondary to keeping the fundraising machinery well greased and the group's senior staff well compensated."

Mr. Feldman claims that Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's Executive Vice President, "…pocketed about $950,000 in 2005," and that NRA headquarters' parking lot is "filled with shiny new BMWs and Mercedez-Benzes.

Some Thoughts on Jackbooted Thugs

Whilst idly browing the Internet, I typed "jackbooted thugs" into Google, and was amazed to see that the phrase had more than 39,000 entries, or whatever you call them. This means that it has entered the language, and since it had its origin with the misuse of guns, and police power, it might be enlightening to see how the term came to be.

Supremes to Hear Second Amendment Case

Last week, it was announced that the Supreme Court would hear arguments on the constitutionality of Washington. D.C.'s handgun ban, and decide in the process whether the right to keep and bear arms refers to militias or individuals.

The case was brought before the Court because Dick Anthony Heller, an armed security guard (ironically, for the D.C. court system), was denied permission to keep his handgun at home. Under the provisions of D.C.'s law, you can't have a handgun, period, and all long guns must be kept either disassembled or have a trigger lock on them. Thus Mister Heller is a staunch defender of public safety if he carries his handgun on the job but a felon if he takes it home.

Fred Thompson Answers My Questions

Fellow bloggers: You may recall (or you may not, depending on how much recoil you've absorbed) that we recently posted a statement from presidential candidate Fred Thompson airing his feelings on the U.N.'s role in gun control. The consensus among you was that the subject was as relevant as, say, Peruvian monetary reform in the years 1902-05. So I composed five relevant questions which Mr. Thompson has answered. (Two notes: In question one, he states that he is an "Endowment Life" member of the NRA. I assume he means an Endowment member; you can't be both. And he apparently chose not to answer question two. I have no idea why.)

Your comments, please (read the interview after the jump).

Exclusive: Fred Thompson on the U.N.

My Fellow Americans:

I will be brief. Yesterday, I was contacted by a Mr. Paul Jon Henke, who handles "new media" relations for Fred Thompson, the tallest Republican presidential candidate who is also an actor. Mr. Henke has sent us the following statement, which the Gun Nut is running as a public service. The statement is about the U.N.'s position on the individual ownership of guns:

Last year, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights declared that international human rights law requires all nations to adopt strict gun control laws. These “minimum” provisions are much more restrictive than any of those on the books anywhere in the U.S. and would almost certainly violate the Second Amendment of our Constitution.

Besides concluding that all nations are obligated under international human rights law to control the small arms and light weapons to which its civilian population has access, the UN report remarkably denied the existence of any human right to self-defense, evidently overlooking the work of Hugo Grotius, the 17th century scholar credited as the founder of international law, who wrote, “It is to be observed that [the] Right of Self-Defence, arises directly and immediately from the Care of our own Preservation, which Nature recommends to every one. . . ,” and that this right is so primary, that it cannot be denied on the basis that it is not “expressly set forth.”

There is another disturbing aspect to this call for international global gun control. Throughout modern history, the forced disarmament of people by its government has often been accompanied or followed by that government’s commission of often massive human rights abuses. In fact, no genocide in the 20th century occurred when the victim population still possessed small arms, legally or illegally, with which to defend themselves.

So now the UN wants to disarm civilians? Where was the UN when the massacres in Rwanda occurred? What did the UN do to protect the victims of ethnic massacres in Bosnia? Disarming civilians under the guise of international human rights law will only lead to more such genocides by ensuring that civilians can never defend themselves! It would be funny if it weren’t so perverse.

Thankfully, the Framers of our Constitution recognized this potential peril to our liberty, and enshrined in our Second Amendment the more basic right of self-defense. The U.N. can say what it likes about other countries’ citizens’ possession of small arms being a violation of human rights law, but so long as the United States is a sovereign nation governed by its Constitution, its words will have no effect here. And I am glad for it.

My own feeling is that the U.N. would screw up the recipe for ice water. The U.N. could not break up a fight between a couple of girl scouts. The U.N. building would make an excellent high-rise apartment site. But I’m not running for president, Mr. Thompson is. Your thoughts, please.

Mondo Bizzaro: Politicians, Guns, and Election Season

This past Friday, Rudy Giuliani and a number of other republican candidates spoke to the NRA's Conference on American Values. Giuliani's appearance was strange beyond words. It was rather like Rosie O'Donnell speaking at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. Few active politicians have done as much as Rudy to make life hard for guns and gun owners. The sum of what he had to say amounted to, in my words:

"I know I've been an anti-gun prick for my entire career, but now that I need your votes, I'm a different guy."

Then he took a cell phone call from his wife. Different interpretations have been placed on this, but mine is, he's simply as rude as every other jerk who is slave to a cell phone.

I think the only honest dialog between a politician and the NRA took place in 1966 or 1967 when Bobby Kennedy spoke to the organization and, in a room that seethed with mutual hatred, said:

"I'm going to put you people out of business."

On Microstamping and Ted Nugent

Whether I ask for them or not, I am sent e-mails from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and sometimes they contain interesting stuff. The latest one informed me that California's legislature has passed a law requiring that all automatic pistols sold in that state after 2010 have their breech faces and firing pins microengraved. This process would stamp the serial number of a gun on the case of any round it fired, enabling the police to trace the firearm from brass left at the scene of a shooting.

An Open Letter To Carolyn McCarthy

August 7, 2007
The Hon. Carolyn McCarthy
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative McCarthy:

I am writing to you because in all of Congress, no one has taken a tougher stance on gun control, and I have become aware of a situation so out of control that only you can handle it.

Who Doesn't Love Ya?

I was recently taken to task by chuckb, a regular reader of this blog and an astute observer of politics, for the way I--and many of you--get on Hillary's case. Hillary, he says, makes all the politically correct noises about gun control, but she doesn't have any real plans. The person who does is Rep. Caroline McCarthy, (D-NY).

The Worst Anti-Gunner Of Them All

And the winner is ...

Who’s The Number One Anti-Gun?

It occurs to me that seldom in recent memory have there been so many anti-gunners yowling and yammering at us, and so, in the great tradition of bloggery, I think it's time to take a poll: Who is the worst of them all?

In order that this project be conducted to the highest scientific standards, I'd like you to consider three factors in making your decision:

1. Extremism of views.
2. Ability to do us real damage.
3. General loathsomeness of personality.

And so, here is your list of candidates. Please choose only one, and keep your remarks brief.

*Mayor Michael Bloomberg
*Sen. Chuck Schumer
*Sen. Hillary Clinton
*Rep. Nancy Pelosi
*Rosie O'Donnell
*Sarah Brady
*Sen. Diane Feinstein
*Sen. Ted Kennedy
*Rep. Caroline O'Connor McCarthy
*A dark horse of your choice

Have at it.

Musings On Michael Moore

In 2002 film maker and professional pain in the ass Michael Moore presented the world with Bowling for Columbine, a "documentary" on the gun culture in the U.S. that took its name from the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. It won an Academy Award that year for Best Documentary, and I saw it, but have forgotten just about all of it, except for one scene:

Dr. Wintermute Takes on Gun Shows

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence just sent me a summary of a study done by Dr. Garen J. Wintermute, who is Director of the University of California (Davis campus) Violence Prevention Research Program. Dr. Wintermute has visited 28 gun shows in California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Florida.

The report is lengthy, highly detailed, and written in the brain-coagulating academic prose that nearly got me flunked out of college. I don’t have the space to discuss it in detail, so I’ll have to limit myself to comments on just a few of his points.

The Anaconda Principle

When one of the big constrictor snakes squashes something for supper, we tend to think of rib cages cracking and eyeballs bugging out of skulls. But the reality is a much subtler process; every time the victim exhales, the snake tightens just a little. With each contraction of the serpent, there is less and less room to inhale, and finally there is none at all.