Assault Clips

Nobody knows for sure what made Clippy snap.  Perhaps it was the cocaine.  Maybe it was the way Steve Ballmer would sneak up and grope him when they were alone in the break room.  For all we know, he hit the breaking point when he turned on the television and saw himself being voiced by Gilbert Gottfried.

All we know is that the 21st century wasn't being kind to Clippy, and he wasn't taking it anymore.



One January morning in 2000, he showed up at the Microsoft offices in Redmond with a Glock 19 and a 33-round magazine.  There would be blood.  Oh yes, there would be blood.

However, Clippy's rampage was cut mercifully short by the fact that he lacked fingers and was unable to operate the gun.  King County deputies arrested him on weapons charges.  He took an insanity defense, and he's currently getting the help he needs.

I wish the same could be said of the Brady Campaign.

Ezell v. Chicago Orals

In a way, this case is a rematch.  In one corner, we have Alan Gura, who represented us admirably in McDonald v. Chicago.  In the other corner, we have Chicago counsel James Feldman, who utterly crashed and burned in his attempts to argue the city's claims in that case.  Apparently, Feldman isn't willing to settle for one failure in front of the nation's highest court, so he's repeating it here.

The case at hand is Ezell v. Chicago, a challenge to Chicago's ban on the construction of indoor shooting ranges within the city limits.  The ban presents something of a Catch-22, due to the Responsible Gun Ownership Ordinance (also known as the "We're Cooperating As Little As Humanly Possible With The Damn Court" ordinance).  The Ordinance requires that registration of a handgun include

an affidavit signed by a firearm instructor certified by the State of Illinois to provide firearm training courses attesting that the applicant has completed a firearm safety and training course, which, at a minimum, provides one hour of range training

That's a hard thing to do when there are no firing ranges around.  Judge Diane Sykes summed it up best:

We're not talking about regulation.  This is a ban.  The city has simultaneously mandated live-fire training as a condition of licensure and prohibited it.  How can that be permissible, and not a burden of a very significant sort on the 2nd Amendment right?  [19:19]

Audio of the arguments is available here [mp3].

Llumetes

Llumetes  (02:32)

Saturday Info Dump

First off, mixed news from Colt.  They're bringing back the New Frontier, but it appears they've "modernized" it a bit.



Maybe it's just a typo.  Still, I imagine a few folks out there are punching their monitors and spewing down the gun forums with the Fanboy Firehose of Indignation.

For April Fool's Day, I propose an advertisement promising a reintroduction of the All American.

A second source of vitriol comes in the form of yet another Chuck Schumer gun bill.  This one is called the "Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011."  So far, he's only managed to con Kirsten Gillebrand and John Kerry into cosponsoring it.  It's going to the Senate Judiciary committee, where I've little doubt Grassley and Coburn will eviscerate it like two-week starved hyenas.

Really, why would he even bother in this climate?  The only explanation (beyond utter barking madness) I can surmise is that the President wants him to be the errand-boy for a dry run on gun control proposals.  In this legislature, that's like sending someone to storm the Somme with a Tec-9.



Both scenarios are mildly amusing and utterly futile.

France Shot First

It might have been a shrewd political gamble, but history is going to remember that France took the initiative in Libya while we stood by.  It will remember that our President was visiting Brazil while civilian militias in Benghazi stood alone against the forces of a demented and vicious dictator.

We failed the Egyptians.  Now we're attempting to atone by taking half-measures on behalf of the Libyans.  We're sitting in the back seat of a coalition supported even by other Islamic states, and we're talking about "limited" action as if this were a minor policing operation.

We have an obligation to support the growth of liberty around the world.  We can't fulfill that by sitting on the sidelines.

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

Feathers are being ruffled over an opinion piece penned by President Obama in the Arizona Daily Star.  In the article, he calls for a "conversation" on gun control.  As I'd expect from him, it's light on substance and heavy on condescension.

Some will say that anything short of the most sweeping anti-gun legislation is a capitulation to the gun lobby. Others will predictably cast any discussion as the opening salvo in a wild-eyed scheme to take away everybody's guns. And such hyperbole will become the fodder for overheated fundraising letters.

At first, it seems a bit odd.  The rhetoric suggests he's trying to make an appeal from the center, but he's still playing to the crowd who elected him.  Taken as a whole, his statements are mildly insulting to everyone involved.

He doesn't offer much in the way of an actual proposal.  In a nutshell, he wants the NICS system to run a little more efficiently.  That's it.  It's vague and non-threatening, which is exactly what he strives to be.  He's not taking any risks, but he can tell the folks back home that he tried.

This the man's greatest failing: he won't commit to anything that might draw controversy.

Blowing It

The reputation of the ATF has taken a beating over the years.  Longtime members of the gun culture are well aware of the Bureau's disastrous actions in the early 1990's.  During the last decade, the ATF seemed to have reformed their strategy somewhat, and their credibility was slowly being rebuilt.

That all changed with the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry late last year.

On December 14th, Terry was gunned down in a firefight near Rio Rico in southern Arizona.  The following day, Arizona law enforcement recovered two of the rifles used.  They were WASR-10 semiautomatic AK-47 clones, purchased by Jaime Avila at a shop in Glendale the previous January.

Avila had been identified by the ATF the previous January as a participant in a vast conspiracy to transport weapons and narcotics across the border into Mexico.  Both Avila and the rifles were in their database as "suspect." Yet Avila was not arrested or questioned until the death of agent Terry.

Plainsong

The Law of Fives is never wrong.



Plainsong  (01:50)

Constitutional Carry Passed in Wyoming

Governor Mead signed the Jennings-Jaggi bill into law today.  As with Alaska, Vermont, and recently, Arizona, Wyoming residents no longer need to apply for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.  Congratulations and gratitude are due for the efforts of Wyoming Gun Owners.

Some will predict that blood will run in the streets.  We've heard it before, and it never happens.  Since passage of Alaska's law in 2003, crime rates have remained largely static.  Arizona's law just passed last April, so crime statistics are not yet available.  However, I don't expect to see any fallout.

Wyoming isn't alone.  Support is rapidly gathering in both houses of South Carolina.

For a long time, Vermont was considered an anomaly.  Alaska could also have been written off as a bit eccentric, but adding two (possibly three or four) states to the rolls may very well constitute a trend.

H.R. 822

John Richardson has the scoop on this one.  Introduced by Cliff Stearns of Florida and co-sponsored by Heath Shuler of North Carolina, the bill seeks to enforce national reciprocity for carry permits.

Two years ago, Senators Thune and Coburn attempted to pass a similar bill by amending it to the Defense Department budget.  It failed by only two votes then, and the landscape is much more amenable to it now.

That is, if the Tea Party still believes all that stuff they did last November.

Ailera

After everything runs down, the wind still blows through.

Ailera (01:57)

Luna, 1993-2011

Luna was a good friend for 17 years.  She'd been through a lot with me, but her health began to fail as of late.

Towards the end, she could scarcely walk, and I wasn't sure if she could recognize me.  It was time.