Revisionism

It's already begun. Mitt Romney showed up at the NRA convention Friday and gave a keynote address that boiled down to "Obama's going to take your guns, but I'm the guy who's going to fight for you right to keep them!"

Nice try, Mitt, but some of us have long memories. We remember who supported the original Assault Weapons Ban in 1993, and we haven't forgotten who signed off on a permanent extension of Massachusetts' state-level equivalent in 2004. Signing up for an NRA life membership two years later doesn't erase that.

Frankly, I don't expect the guy to push for the 2nd Amendment if he gets elected. I don't think we can even expect a wizened little shove. The best we'll get is that he stays out of the way of the progress we're making.

Is the situation ideal? Nope. But politics isn't about the ideal; it's about what's practical and achievable. This is something you just can't beat into the Ron Paul zealots. We take the best candidate who has a chance of winning, and this time around, it's Mitt Romney.

If he doesn't screw up too badly, we've got another few years with a sympathetic legislature and Supreme Court, and that's where the gains are to be made.

In happier news, check this out:



9mm Hornady Critical Defense loadings against pork ribs. Tell me it's no good now, Captain Tactical! While not the least bit scientific, I'm going to claim that this completely contradicts those silly Swiss goat shooting tests and declare that the .45 is just for old coots with compensation issues.

Like That When I Got Here

A guy came into work the other day and regaled me with his elaborate plans to build a flamethrower that shoots ball bearings. This is dedicated to him.

Like That When I Got Here  (01:19)

Decision in Woollard v. Sheridan

The Maryland District Court has just handed down a decision [pdf] in the Woollard case granting the plaintiff summary judgement. You can catch up on the background here. The meat of the decision is that Maryland's standard for issuance of carry permits is too strict and arbitrary to pass constitutional muster.

From the opinion:

The Court finds that Maryland’s requirement of a “good and substantial reason” for issuance of a handgun permit is insufficiently tailored to the State’s interest in public safety and crime prevention. The law impermissibly infringes the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

Judge Legg maintains that the right to carry outside the home is only covered by intermediate scrutiny, but this is a step forward.

At bottom, this case rests on a simple proposition: If the Government wishes to burden a right guaranteed by the Constitution, it may do so provided that it can show a satisfactory justification and a sufficiently adapted method. The showing, however, is always the Government‘s to make. A citizen may not be required to offer a "good and substantial reason"why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right‘s existence is all the reason he needs. [p. 20]

This is the first opinion to phrase the idea in such clear and forceful language.

Think Blue, Count Two

Space sometimes commands strange tools to its uses.

Think Blue, Count Two (01:34)

False Flags and Cheap Shots

I was having a good day. I was rocking out to Hilary Hahn's phenomenal recording of Ives' violin sonatas, until I got word that a profile had been established for me at this site.

That's odd. I've never heard of that site, and I found that "claiming" my profile would require a paid membership. Well, that's pretty dishonest and underhanded.

So, who are these people? They don't seem too keen on making friends. In fact, they spend a great sum of pixels lambasting other established gun bloggers, and they've trolled more than a few gun forums. A whois query shows that the ownership and hosting details are obfuscated, and the only contact information is a phone number out of Denmark. I can tell from the grammar on the site that there are no Danes running it.

Then someone found a bit of a serendipitous wrinkle in their WordPress code.  Type in some garbage after the URL, and Smoke and Mirrors directs to the website of the Violence Policy Center.

We call those oopsies.

I was wondering where Josh Sugarmann was spending all that money he gets from the Joyce Foundation, since it's not as if his little group is very active in politics these days. I guess he's got to do something to keep busy, but this is just pathetic.

And frankly, it's encouraging to see that the opposition has to stoop to things like this.

Persistent Ringdown

Low-rent phase music made affordable.

Persistent Ringdown  (01:49)

New President for the Brady Campaign

Since Paul Helmke stepped down last year, Dennis Henigan has been serving as active president. Today, the Brady Campaign announced that Daniel Gross would be taking the reins.

Gross was formerly the director of the Center to Prevent Youth Violence. I can't find much about their funding. They were previously known as PAX, who received a $200,000 grant from the Joyce Foundation in 2004, but the trail appears to stop there.

Given that the Brady Campaign's budget has fallen into the four-digit range, I'm curious as to whether this guy is bringing in further funding, as they can't be paying him much.

Or, it might just be a part-time gig for him to build his resume.

Fast and Furious: Another Round

Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the House Oversight Committee again today. As with his previous appearances, we were treated to a litany of evasions and excuses. Long story short:  he doesn't know what's going on in his department, and he claims to have had no knowledge of any gunwalking operations prior to the death of Brian Terry.

It's been over a year since he promised an internal investigation, and he has yet to provide any explanation or any proof of action. Representative Labrador pointed out that Holder continues to show up for Congressional hearings unprepared, and that he seems oblivious to happenings at Justice. Representative Farenthold took it a step further, asking Holder, "knowing what you know, do you think you're qualified to lead the Department of Justice?"

Holder's response? "If you're going to ask me to resign (...) you've asked the wrong question."

I don't think we are.

Fast and Furious: Cummings Pushes Back

Attorney General Holder gets another chance to testify to the House Oversight Committee Thursday morning.  Just in time, Representative Elijah Cummings has released a report [pdf] in which he claims to clear the White House and Department of Justice of any complicity in this matter.  Of course, if they were already clear, then why is this unsolicited "report" even necessary?

He doesn't go so far as to claim ignorance, only that,

[t]he Committee has obtained no evidence that Operation Fast and Furious was a politically-motivated operation conceived and directed by high-level Obama Administration political appointees at the Department of Justice.

Instead, Cummings settles for declaring that the administration did not conceive or direct Fast and Furious.  He seems to think that justification hinges on such semantic differences.

Entitled "Fatally Flawed: Five Years of Gun-walking in Arizona," the report tries to lump Fast and Furious in with prior such schemes as Wide Receiver ("see?  George Bush did it, too!"), and it attempts to portray the entire situation as something isolated to rogue elements in the Phoenix field division.

Of course, this flies in the face of facts.  US Attorney Dennis Burke has resigned after being caught providing false claims to his superiors, and newly available documentation [pdf] from NPR shows that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson still approved of the operation's details as of February of 2011.

Allais Loop

A glitch in cubic interpolation. Sometimes the most novel results are the least expected.

Allais Loop  (01:03)

After the Blackout

I'm uncertain how effective the Wikipedia blackout truly was. Most people who've mentioned it to me saw it as a massive inconvenience and little more. That's a shame, because a some lessons are being lost there.

1. SOPA is a bad bill, and one with potentially dire consequences for the entire internet.


2. At least one major pillar of the online community was willing to step up to protest it.


3. Most people don't care and would rather not be bothered. They had to endure 24 hours being deprived of a resource for which they pay nothing, and for which there are alternatives.

I hope just a small fraction of those folks will actually follow up and research the bill. If even some people choose to get active about it, all the better.

Speaking of which, those of us in Georgia really need to reconsider our choices in representation. Both Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss are cosponsors of the Senate version. Both men also voted for S. 1867. Remember that one? Chambliss has until 2014, and Isakson until 2016, but I won't be forgetting this.

Phil Gingrey is supporting the House version, and he is up for reelection this year. I'll vote for a Democrat who respects his constituents before I will a Republican who sells them out.

It's the Economy, Stupid

The FBI reports that there were 500,000 NICS checks performed for gun purchases in the week before Christmas. That's a record, beating even the whole post-election rush. There were 129,166 checks this Black Friday, beating the previous record of 98,000 in 2008.

The media, few of whom are in touch with the gun culture, are postulating all sorts of reasons for the boom, but they're missing the real factors. I submit that this year's record numbers are more due to increased interest in the hobby and confidence in the economy than they are to paranoia, crime, or politics.

In 2009, panic buying was the order of the day. They were coming for our guns! Get 'em before the ban! Society was on the verge of collapse. People were buying guns just to buy guns. I worried that few, if any, would actually get training or take up shooting as a pastime.

I'm relieved to say I was wrong.

The character of this year's rush was completely different: happier, calmer, more informed, and more inquisitive. A much larger percentage of buyers are repeat purchasers, and they're getting guns with the enjoyment of shooting in mind. Enrollment in training courses has risen exponentially. Folks aren't yelling about politics anymore. Rather, they're getting advice on being better shooters.

What a breath of fresh air! Now, can we just get past the whole zombie thing, please?

(Incidentally, that figure is only the number of individual checks, not the actual number of firearms transferred. Multiple firearms in the same transaction only get one check. Additionally, purchasers in many states can bypass the check if they have a carry permit, so we can likely assume the real number is 30-50% higher.)