Archive for September, 2008

September 23, 2008

More palm pistols

Here.

Update: David notes wiggle room in the aforementioned approval letter that would indicate one shouldn’t bet the farm on palm pistols.

Report

Appleseed report and photos from Les Jones.

Fact Checking Fact Check

Seems FactCheck is feeling the hope and change. Or rather, they’re not fans of NRA’s ads that highlight Barack Obama’s record on guns. You would think that, since fact check is part of the name, that they would actually, you know, like check facts and stuff. But you’d be wrong. Tom (who still thinks I’m on a two year vacation) alerted me to it but I was out of pocket last night. For starters:

A National Rifle Association advertising campaign distorts Obama’s position on gun control beyond recognition.

Based on his past actions, his position is not beyond recognition. Fact Check seems to think his policy papers trump his past actions.

The NRA is circulating printed material and running TV ads making unsubstantiated claims that Obama plans to ban use of firearms for home defense, ban possession and manufacture of handguns, close 90 percent of gun shops and ban hunting ammunition.

Actually, the claims seem to be pretty well substantiated. However, NRA did spin a few of the claims.

Continuing with some bullet points, they state NRA’s claim that Obama would Ban use of Firearms for Home Self-Defense. FactCheck gets it wrong. Obama opposed a bill that would have made it an affirmative defense to registration requirements if an arm was used in self-defense. That is to say that if you use your gun in lawful self-defense, you generally will not be found guilty of technical violations. Sounds to me like opposition to it is pretty much opposing lawful self-defense but it is not banning firearms use for self defense.

Next supposed fact check: Ban Rifle Ammunition Commonly Used for Hunting and Sport Shooting. Fact check calls it false. Fact Check is wrong. Armor piercing handgun ammo is already banned. Any popular hunting cartridge can penetrate body armor. Fact Check says it’s false because the bill targeted ammo designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability and Kennedy says it wasn’t meant for hunting ammo. Technically, all powerful rifle rounds by design have armor piercing capability, depending on the level of armor.

Next supposed fact check: Ban the Manufacture, Sale and Possession of Handguns. Well, let’s see. I wonder where anyone could have gotten the idea he wanted to ban possession and manufacture of handguns? Oh yeah, from FactCheck. Twice, even. I knew I’d seen it before.

Next supposed fact check: Mandate a Government-Issued License to Purchase a Firearm. Even Fact Check says ok, ya got me on this one. But calls it misleading.

Next: Pass Federal Laws Eliminating Your Right-to-Carry. Ok, we got him on that one too.

Next: Expand the Clinton Semi-Auto Weapons Ban to Include Millions More Firearms. Fact Check calls it partly true. And by partly, they mean absolutely.

Next: Appoint Judges to the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Judiciary Who Share His Views on the Second Amendment. Fact check calls it unsupported. I suppose they leave open room that he may possibly nominate some textualists or originalists to the courts?

Next: Increase Federal Taxes on Guns and Ammunition by 500 Percent. Fact Check calls it uncertain then points out that it probably happened. That doesn’t sound very fact-checky.

Next: Close Down 90 Percent of Gun Shops in America. They call it uncertain. Which, at fact check, seems to mean true. After all, he did write a bill that made operating a gun shop within five miles of a school illegal. Trouble is, there seems to be a school every five miles or so in most places.

Pro-Gun Progressive has also responded to fact checks lack of checking facts.

Now, a couple things. NRA was spinning a lot of this stuff as things Obama will do instead of things that he has done. But along came Fact Check and spun it back the other way. That’s not very fact-checky.

It’s like FactCheck is in the tank for Obama, or something.

Looks like fact check may have scored 2 on technicalities but not by much. And definitely by being misleading.

Update: Countertop provides more on the ammo ban noting that Kennedy specifically wants to ban 30-30, one of the most popular hunting rounds in the US:

Another rifle caliber, the 30.30 caliber, was responsible for penetrating three officers? armor and killing them in 1993, 1996, and 2002. This ammunition is also capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating.

A popular caliber in lever guns. So much for that one.

Update: Pattycakes fact checks FactCheck:

Once again, if you give primacy to what his recent campaign statements have been, then, by golly, he supports the Second Amendment! But if you look at his record ? his past statements ? then the NRA is right to be concerned.

Update: Still more from Sebastian:

I would encourage folks to contact FactCheck and tell them of some of their oversights here. Be factual. It very well may be, and probably is, that they don?t understand the gun issue that well, and NRA?s publications are meant more to rally gun owners than they are to educate the masses. That?s often going to be our job.

Gun Porn

The Gun Blog 45.

neat

Action Airgun starts today.

I know quite a few folks seem to be into this.

His loss, your gain

Springfield 1911

Guns in DC

Remington involved in the First Shots training program.

Revenue Cameras

Red light cameras do not improve safety. No surprise. They’ve never been about safety and only about dollars.

September 22, 2008

They Have To Lie To Win

Seems it’s not just the anti-gun folks who are guilty of it.

As a side note, per a user comment (Egregious Charles, maybe?), I tried to categorize this post under “Flaming Bag of Poo,” but I don’t have permission to add new categories. 🙂

UPDATE: PolitiFact.com is even less kind to the NRA mailer — be sure to send some of your vitriol that way, too:

Here’s what LaPierre wrote about the vote: “When Obama turned thumbs down on the bill, he voted against the most basic element of the Second Amendment ? the right of defense of self and family ? the reason that millions of Americans own firearms.”

That’s a bit of a leap. In concrete terms, Obama’s thumbs-down was a vote against the state legislature tweaking a local gun ban. In any event, there’s no fair way to interpret it as evidence that Obama has a future plan to ban the use of firearms for home defense.

…snip…

Ignoring that sort of evidence, and instead extrapolating from one vote on a jurisdictional debate in Illinois a broad-ranging plan to ban guns for home defense, is not just misleading, it’s intentionally dishonest. That is, Pants on Fire wrong.

Defense

In response to the NRA’s offense, Obama shill Sean breaks out the straws (and strawmen) to grasp:

National Republican Association

Per an NRA lobbyist I once had dinner with, NRA endorses more Democrats in Tennessee than Republicans. Continuing:

In the ad, they claim that “he also supports a ban on the shotguns and rifles most of us use for hunting.” An interesting claim, and the reference used to back it up is the 2004 debate between Obama and Alan Keyes.

It also comes from a 2003 bill (S.B. 1195) which would have banned a lot of weapons, even weapons that were not semi-automatic. The rest of Obama’s gun votes tell the same story.

But keep telling us it’s OK. He’s not getting Biden’s guns and he doesn’t have the votes anyway. It’s working so well.

On the offensive

NRA is running some ads about Barack Obama. See the videos here.

Call your senator

Seen at Bitter’s:

Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and 46 other senators have asked for Senate floor time for House-passed legislation to roll back District of Columbia gun laws.

In a letter Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., the group asked him to call up the bill before the end of the 110th Congress.

?We ask you to ensure that D.C. residents do not have to wait any longer to realize their constitutional rights,? Hutchison and her allies wrote. The letter was signed by five Democrats. ?

Reid has not decided whether or when to call up the legislation, according to his spokesman.

Palm Pistol Update

Some folks doubted ATF would classify the Palm Pistol as a pistol. Matt emailed me the ATF letter. Sebastian posted a copy.

Of course, it’s still possible for ATF to change it’s mind. Which, if history is an indication, will be after production and sales ramp up.

I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids

Over at NewWest, The American Hunters And Shooters Association is trying to deny that it is a false flag front for anti-gunners trying to appear pro-gun. And that they are shills for the Democrat Leadership Council. Seems they blame John Lott. John Lott is not the one who put the piece of that puzzle together. That legwork was done by Gun Law News who followed the money.

Meanwhile, David Hardy follows the money too and notes, as we suspected all along, they are a false flag. Why would Schoenke donate money to a group whose goal was to ban guns if he wasn’t, you know, anti-gun.

Meanwhile, from my own round up of the American Hunters and Shooters Association:

The NSSF has a fact sheet on them here:

Reported in an article by Bill Schneideri that the operating budget for AHSA is $500,000. Where did this money come from? With only a handful of members (paying $25 dues) – who is bankrolling their operation?

When you follow the money, they read like a who’s who of gun grabbers. They are a front for the anti-gun Democratic Leadership Council so that anti-gun politicos can say they belong to a group that sounds pro-gun.

Members (five of them that they disclose) of the AHSA are anti-gun lobbyists.

They’re basically a shill group set up so that anti-gun candidates can try to woo the hunting crowd. Note that their only endorsement victory (McCaskill) did not sign on to support Heller.

AHSA wrote a non-opposition opposition to Heller for it’s wording.

The president allegedley helped a reporter break the law by engaging in straw purchases.

They pay people to stand outside NRA meetings to protest. Can’t get any volunteers with all your members?

They support they anti-gun Mayors Against Guns.

Field and Stream (you know, real hunters and real shooters) don’t seem to be a fan.

They keep peddling the Zumbo myth.

They call gun owners extremists and whackos. That’s correct. The Executive Director of a supposedly pro-gun group is calling those who buy weapons for self-defense (i.e., the largest growing demographic of gun owners) whackos. So, who exactly are the shooters in American Hunters and Shooters?

They say any woman who buys a gun is a sign of law-breaking.

But remember, I’m just a shill for the NRA who is bad and not really pro-gun.

Law abiding gun owners

We’re winning:

The number of Floridians with permission to pack heat has jumped nearly 50 percent in three years.

In 2005, one year before the state Legislature’s decision to provide anonymity to people holding concealed weapons licenses, there were 347,350 active permits statewide.

Now, that number has swelled to about 520,000.

Some states ask applicants why they want a concealed weapons license. Florida isn’t one of them. That makes it almost impossible to say who is getting licensed and why.

Sort of related is Who’s Packing Heat:

A pit bull lunges for a 4-year-old boy as he walks with his father to Saturday services at a Harrisburg synagogue. The father pulls his pistol and shoots the dog. In the parking lot of an Annville-Cleona school, a student finds a loaded handgun. Turns out, a school bus driver with a permit to carry it dropped it from her purse.

In the wake of a shooting outside Harrisburg Mall, police arrest and then release an armed man in a car. He’s not a suspect, they say, and he has a permit to pack that pistol. Recent stories like these point to a quiet revolution in American gun laws that began two decades ago, with Pennsylvania in the vanguard.

Wow. It’s like normal, every day people get carry permits or something.

Cool

Read the whole thing:

Jim Richardson was aware of the odds when he made up his mind on a birthday gift for his father, Virgil Richardson of Davison Township.

The 54-year old Frankenmuth man wanted to track down the M1 Garand .30-caliber rifle his father carried more than 50 years ago as a soldier in the Korean War and present it to him on his 79th birthday next month.

More GBR3 Stuff

Mr. C. notes that Hi Cap Guns will be bring some goodies to the Rendezvous.

Shaping up to be quite the event. Sadly, I cannot make it this year due to scheduling conflicts. I’m bummed.

Gun Porn

Bullpup M-14: M4 size, M14 power.

Home defense guns.

Appleseed Shoot

Les Jones went.

Oleg took some photos.

More pink guns

Shooting Wire notes that Crimson Trace is catering to women with some pink laser grips.

September 21, 2008

Dems and guns

Nothing new but a look at Obama’s anti-gun record.

Meanwhile, Biden (with an F from NRA) says:

‘I guarantee you, Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey,’ Biden said angrily. ‘They’re going to start peddling that to you.’

‘I got two, if he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.’

I seem to recall him saying other gun owner needed help. Relax, they keep saying, we don’t have the votes.

Meanwhile, Obama has never seen gun control he didn’t support.

September 20, 2008

Tree Bleg

Are these persimmons? I’m pretty sure they look like them and they look like the wiki entry pic.

From Home Life

Click to embiggen.

If so, what do you do with them?

Go Vols

I knew it wouldn’t go well but not that bad.

OMatch

See if you and Obama are compatible!

September 19, 2008

Capitalists

Braisted:

Wall Street all of a sudden favors Government intervention into the economy, as evidenced by the 400 point spike at the Dow.

unto Caesar

So, VP candidate Biden first said that paying taxes was patriotic. It’s also a good way not to have your life ruined by the IRS. In defending the comment, he said paying taxes is next to Godliness:

“Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is, you take care of people who need the help the most,” he said. “Now it’d be different if you could make the case to me that by giving this tax cut to the very wealthy, everybody else was going to be better off. We saw what happened the last eight years when we gave that tax cut.”

However, Biden doesn’t look to take care of people, according to his tax returns. Money talks.

Mostly harmless

Epic Gun Fail

Financial Forecast: Gloomy

As Tam said:

In business news this morning ZOMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

So, basically, we have two huge companies and their performance sucks more than Metallica’s new album. The solution to the problem, if you’re a politician or a retard, is to bail them out. What that would mean is our government is going to buy something that nobody wants at a price no one wants to pay with money the government probably doesn’t have to spend anyway. This comes after two other big companies tank. Yeehaw, corporate welfare!

That’s the short term fix. These two companies are heavily regulated, one because it’s basically a quasi-government agency anyway and the other because it’s in a highly regulated industry and in NY. Under such oversight, these companies still failed. The long term solution, if you’re a politician or a retard, is more regulation! Yes because that worked out so well the first time.

In other news, LIBOR had a big one day decrease indicating that banks no longer want to loan other banks money. That means your small town bank may have an issue getting a float from a larger bank.

And in the case of one of the companies, Obama’s economic adviser made major bling running it. That’s a confidence builder.

For a sense of scale, DirtCrashr points out that the Enron collapse was to the tune of $65 billion. Fannie Mae is in at $6.5 trillion. And made a lot of rich Democrats richer.

In times like this, ammo is a good investment. Oh sure, it won’t make you any money but it provides you with some needed stress release.

The digital brown shirts

Meet the guys that surf Al Gore’s Internets and get shirts that make fun of their messiah yanked:

Much of Barack Obama’s political success can be traced to a database listing contact information for millions of people, a tool that has proved invaluable in raising record sums of money and organizing a national volunteer network.

Now Obama’s presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows.

It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM in Chicago when the radio station hosted author David Freddoso, who has written a controversial book about the Illinois Democrat.

The latest use of the database, called the Obama Action Wire, is proving yet another new and potentially powerful tactic in the closing weeks of a campaign that has already been dominated by Internet-based messages and media.

So, that’s what a community organizer does.

And it seems that Sarah Palin has had her private email account hacked. By a student here in Tennessee, who is the son of a state representative.

Silence has the round up.

Piston system

Adams Arms makes a Retrofit Piston Driven System for the AR-15.

At $500 though, I could just build another AR to carry around in case the first one jammed up.

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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