Posts Tagged ‘Guns’
Monday, December 28th, 2015
I hope everyone had a merrier Christmas than I did. (My father recently went on hospice care after a two year fight with cancer, so I was back home helping my mother care for him.) Here’s a LinkSwarm to start your week with.
Inside Obama’s pity party.
Remember, Obama’s policies never fail, and all opposition to him is because his opponents are bitter clinging racists.
We live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
“Many Obamacare customers pay more than 10 percent of their incomes toward coverage (and some paying considerably more).”
What would Democrats do to defeat the Islamic State? Not a damn thing.
Iraqi government forces retake Ramadi, the Anbar province city the Islamic State took in May.
“Two weather occurrences – the Arctic Oscillation and El Niño – are combining to shake up temperatures from coast to coast in the U.S., bringing springlike conditions to the Northeast for much of this month and leaving parts of the West colder and wetter than usual.”
2015: The year Europe reached the breaking point:
Adjusting for inflation, the gross domestic product of the 19 countries now sharing Europe’s common currency, the euro, was less in 2014 than it was in 2007. Widespread joblessness and diminishing opportunities confront an entire generation of young Europeans, especially in Spain, Italy, France and Greece. The economic malaise tinges everything: Young people resist marriage for lack of economic opportunity. Poorer European countries are experiencing brain drains as many of their best young professionals and college graduates move abroad. Numerous Greek doctors, for instance, now work in more prosperous Germany while Greece’s health system is in crisis.
Sweden tries to force a cash-free society on its citizens. Wait, did I say “citizens?” I meant “vassals.”
Spain continues to be screwed.
Democrat Jim Webb contemplating an independent run for President.
Pennsylvania’s insane, disgraced Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane accused of suborning perjury.
Democrats in congress have proposed a sweeping gun control bill. Because that’s always such a big electoral winner. It just kills liberals that free citizens are allowed to remain armed…
The left eat their own.
Black teenagers riot, shut down mall in Kentucky.
Another entry in the annals of criminal SUPERgenius. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
“Database Leak Exposes 3.3 Million Hello Kitty Fans.” This is a real headline from the real world we live in…
Here’s a swell Christmas story from Dwight.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Crime, Democrats, Economics, El Nino, Elections, Euro, Europe, Eurozone, flash mob, Global Warming, Guns, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jim Webb, Kathleen Kane, LinkSwarm, Military, Obama, ObamaCare, Spain, Sweden
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Global Warming, Guns, Military, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015
Most people learn from their mistakes.
Liberal gun control advocates are not “most people.”
This Sean Davis piece shows two of their more persistent errors on display: Their inability to learn what an “assault weapon” was legally defined as, and their inability to figure out that their actions make owning a gun more popular, not less.
More than one pundit has observed that pushing for gun control legislation accomplishes two things: 1.) Sends gun sales through the roof, and 2.) Gets Democrats defeated come election time.
Notably absent from that list: Decreasing firearms deaths.
Of course, for liberals gun control has never been about keeping criminals from using guns. The purpose behind gun control has always been to disarm the law abiding civilian population, all the better to implement their big government/culture war schemes.
There was a time when Blue Dog Democrats would keep the gun-grabbing instincts of their liberal brethren in check, but the last two decades have seen those Blue Dogs ruthlessly purged from the party. No the Democrats are All In on gun control, even if it kills them.
Let’s hope that Democrats have the same sort of election in 2016 they had in 1994…
Tags:Blue Dog Democrats, Democrats, gun control, Guns
Posted in Democrats, Guns | No Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2015
Evidently the two San Bernardino gunmen were Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, both now dead from police gunfire. Farook’s name came up early from Twitter users listening to the police scanner.
Farook was evidently a state environmental employee.
To the surprise of absolutely no one except liberals, Farook was a devout Muslim. Says his father: “He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”
Also: “Co-workers said Farook had traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife he met online, according to reports.”
Yes, his motives are an insoluble mystery.
More than one observer noted that this attack doesn’t fit many classic patterns. And indeed it doesn’t.
But “workplace violence” incidents don’t end like this one did. “Honey, San Bernardino County has insulted me for the last time! Let’s both of us load up with guns and our already-prepared pipe bombs and go down there and shoot every last one of them, leaving our baby behind!”
Jim Geraghty has similar thoughts. “There was nothing impulsive about this.”
A law enforcement source told Fox News that the couple were each carrying an AR-15 rifle and a pistol when they were shot and killed by police after a brief chase in their black SUV about 2 miles from the initial shooting site. The source said the vehicle also contained so-called “rollout bags” with multiple pipe bombs, as well as additional ammunition. The couple also had GoPro cameras strapped to their body armor and wore tactical clothing, including vests stuffed with ammunition magazines.
“That’s a military tactic for a sustained fight,” the source told Fox News of the rollout bags.
That’s the sort of thing you bring if you want to make videos to terrorize other people, and rally others to their cause or ideology… it also would explain why they left the scene instead of staying to shoot it out with police at the social services facility. They intended to live to tell the tale, at least for a while.
This was a jihad attack Farook had obviously been planning (or at least contemplating) for a long time.
Blathering about climate change, passing pointless gun control legislation, and letting in more “Syrian refugees” will do absolutely nothing to prevent the next Syed Farook from going out in a blaze of radical Islamic martyrdom.
Tags:active shooter, Crime, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Radical Islam, San Bernardino, Saudi Arabia, Syed Farook
Posted in Crime, Jihad, Media Watch | No Comments »
Friday, November 13th, 2015
The big story this week has been the Children of the Corn running amok in Missouri. I hope to have a longer piece on that by and by. In the meantime, enjoy your Friday LinkSwarm:
ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion is blowing holes in state budgets across the nation.
How the Clinton Foundation money-laundering machine works.
Maryland’s “bullet fingerprint” database cost $5 million to set up and maintain. Number of criminals caught by it? Zero. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
How much money each state is sending to the Presidential race. Texas is number one in SuperPAC money, and number two (behind California) in hard money.
Kurdish Pesh Merga forces retake Sinjar from the Islamic State.
China makes tiny under-reporting error on coal usage. Any by “tiny,” I mean “equal to entire U.S. coal use.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
Sell books critical of the Chinese government in Hong Kong? Prepare to be disappeared.
Secret Service agent arrested in child sex sting. The country is in the best of hands. (Hat tip: AceofSpadesHQ.)
Kafkatrap vs. Honeytrap. “If you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference.”
Woman starts making documentary about Men’s Rights Movement. Funny things happens: When she starts making an actual, even-handed documentary, the funders who wanted a feminist hit piece drop her like a hot potato, but Kickstarter backers step up to the plate after a plug from Milo Yiannopoulos.
UT academic critics of open carry should step out of their ivory tower and take a look at the real world.
Dear Formula 1: If your race requires subsidies to survive in Austin, I’m happy to see you fold.
An inside-baseball look at the Ted Cruz super PAC ad buy that wasn’t.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, California, China, Clinton Foundation, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Kurds, LinkSwarm, Milo Yiannopoulos, ObamaCare, Pesh Merga, Sinjar, Social Justice Warriors, Ted Cruz, Texas
Posted in Austin, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, ObamaCare, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, November 9th, 2015
I wanted to take a closer look at a few off-year election issues from last week, specifically the Proposition 6 “Right to Hunt and Fish” Amendment.
Really, if you wanted a “safe” vote for people favoring gun control to cast, opposing Prop 6, a constitutional amendment that wouldn’t change a single law in hunting-friendly Texas, seems ideal.
Just look at how the Houston Chronicle sneered at the amendment’s supporters in an editorial opposing it: “This amendment…is the most ridiculous on the ballot…[it’s] essentially a paean to the ‘black helicopter’ crowd that’s eager to harry and harass legitimate conservation efforts in Texas.”
And after all the sneering by smart set urban liberals, how did Prop 6 do? It won with over 81% of the vote. Evidently more than four-fifths of Texans are part of “the black helicopter crowd.”
That’s some fringe group.
My quick scan of county-by-county results shows not a single county in Texas voted against Prop 6. In the smaller counties, Prop 6 passed by a ratio of about 10-1.
A liberal data wonk sent out this tweet while voting was still going on.
(Here’s a non-Tweet version of that map.)
That’s your gun control vote right there: A white liberal urban core. Prop 6 passed Travis County, the deepest blue white liberal bastion in the state, by 44,128 in favor to 28,797.
When actual citizens get to vote, gun control loses every time.
If gun control loses in Austin, it’s hard to see where it wins outside San Francisco and New York City.
Tags:Austin, gun control, Guns, Texas, Texas Constitutional Amendment
Posted in Austin, Elections, Guns, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, November 6th, 2015
Another Friday, another LinkSwarm:
What’s Obama’s strategy in Iraq and Syria? He doesn’t have one. “Without a clear overarching strategy to resolve the conflict.” Say what you want about Bush, he wanted to win in Iraq. Obama wants to do just enough to not get blamed for losing.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is not wild about George Soros encouraging waves of Islamic refugees in Europe.
Speaking of Islamic refugees, shotguns (which don’t need a permit) are selling like hotcakes in Austria. Whatever could be the reason?
“The Democratic party is mainly a coalition of interest groups, and the current model of Democratic politics — poor and largely non-white people providing the muscle and rich white liberals calling the shots — is unsustainable…Democrats gleefully predict that demographic changes are going to give their party a permanent majority. The unspoken corollary to that is that white liberals think they’re going to remain in charge of it.”
Forget all those Republican obituaries: Democrats are the ones being booted out of office.
Victories in Houston and Kentucky were stinging rebukes to cultural war overreach by the left.
Ted Cruz, Jedi Debater.
Jeb Bush needs an intervention.
Pennsylvania’s Democratic Attorney General, facing criminal indictment and calls to resign on all sides, instead send out porny emails.
Announce that you’re abandoning your Vegan diet because it was making you sick? That’s a death threat.
Owner of bankrupt Atlantic City casino threatens to house thousands of Syrain refugees there.
Denmark to Bernie Sanders: Stop calling us socialists, you pinko!
Free market economics: It even makes formerly socialist food banks run better!
Students entering Yale are evidently ignorant as fark all. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Dashcam video proves black Texas professor lied about being racially profiled. Hat Tip: Instapundit.)
Matt McCall takes another run at Rep. Lamar Smith.
I’ll take Least Surprising Sports Headlines for $400, Alex: “Former Raiders first-round pick convicted on three counts of murder.”
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Atlantic City, Austria, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Europe, gambling, George Soros, Guns, Houston, Hungary, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jeb Bush, Jihad, Kentucky, Lamar Smith, LinkSwarm, Matt McCall, New Jersey, Oakland Raiders, Pennsylvania, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Syria, Ted Cruz, Texas, Welfare State
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »
Thursday, October 29th, 2015
Did you know that there’s a Texas constitutional amendment election November 3rd? Indeed there is, and early voting extends through tomorrow. Someone, I kept thinking, should do a roundup of what’s on the ballot.
It turns out that I am, in fact, someone.
Proposition 1 – SJR 1
The constitutional amendment increasing the amount of the residence homestead exemption from ad valorem taxation for public school purposes from $15,000 to $25,000, providing for a reduction of the limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for those purposes on the homestead of an elderly or disabled person to reflect the increased exemption amount, authorizing the legislature to prohibit a political subdivision that has adopted an optional residence homestead exemption from ad valorem taxation from reducing the amount of or repealing the exemption, and prohibiting the enactment of a law that imposes a transfer tax on a transaction that conveys fee simple title to real property.
Recommendation: For. It’s a Republican amendment that lets homeowners keep more of their own money.
Proposition 2 – HJR 75
The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for an exemption from ad valorem taxation of all or part of the market value of the residence homestead of the surviving spouse of a 100 percent or totally disabled veteran who died before the law authorizing a residence homestead exemption for such a veteran took effect.
Recommendation: For. This passed the House unanimously and has garnered no real opposition.
Proposition 3 – SJR 52
The constitutional amendment repealing the requirement that state officers elected by voters statewide reside in the state capital.
Ballotpedia:
The offices that would be affected by the repeal are the Attorney General, Comptroller of Public Accounts, Land Commissioner and ‘any statutory State officer who is elected by the electorate of Texas at large.’ The Texas Governor, Texas Lieutenant Governor, Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals would still be required to live in the capital as mandated by other constitutional provisions.
Recommendation: For. This Amendment recognizes that it’s the 21st century and not the 19th. There’s no reason state officials can’t serve effectively even while living elsewhere. And anything that gets them away from capitol groupthink is a good thing.
Proposition 4 – HJR 73
The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to permit professional sports team charitable foundations to conduct charitable raffles.
Ballotpedia:
Under current law, only nonprofit organizations can hold raffles, which took effect after voters passed Proposition 15 in 1989.[1]
The amendment would apply to teams in the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and the National Hockey League. Raffles would only be allowed at home games of the sports teams associated with the foundations.[2][3][4][1]
House Joint Resolution 73, the enabling legislation for the amendment, outlines who could hold a raffle, how a raffle could be conducted and penalties for breaking the rules. The measure also mandates how the raffle revenue would be allocated:[5]
- 50 percent or less would be awarded to the raffle winner
- 40 percent or more would be donated to charity
- 10 percent or less could be used for raffle operating expenses
No Recommendation. The fact that the convoluted nature of the Texas constitution even requires a constitutional amendment concerning professional sports teams is somewhat irksome. On the plus side: More money for charities, less government prohibitions, and the scope for abuse seems small. On the minus side, it may open the door for gambling industry interests down the road, and a significant number of very conservative legislators (including Konni Burton and Don Huffines) voted against it.
Proposition 5 – SJR 17
The constitutional amendment to authorize counties with a population of 7,500 or less to perform private road construction and maintenance.
Recommendation: For. While I’m always suspicious of using public money on private ventures, the Texas Constitution already allows counties with 5,000 or fewer residents to perform such construction, it’s usually for safety reasons, and the law requires both land owner permission and for them to reimburse the county for the work, so the scope for possible abuse seems small.
Proposition 6 – SJR 22
The constitutional amendment recognizing the right of the people to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife subject to laws that promote wildlife conservation.
Recommendation: For. The NRA is fully behind this amendment, it provides a bit of a legal bulwark against overreaching federal regulators, and it’s driving the the usual urban gun grabbers buggy. What’s not to like?
Proposition 7 – SJR 5
The constitutional amendment dedicating certain sales and use tax revenue and motor vehicle sales, use, and rental tax revenue to the state highway fund to provide funding for nontolled roads and the reduction of certain transportation-related debt.
Recommendation: For. I’m always suspicious when industry sources flood my mailbox with pro-proposition flyers, which has been the case this year for Props 1 (realtors love it) and 7 (looks like the road construction industry). However, this is a case where the money does actually need to be spent to keep up with road infrastructure growth and maintenance needs, it limits discretionary (read: pork) spending by future legislatures, and is a better funding mechanism than drawing from the rainy day fund (which was authorized by a 2014 amendment).
Huh. It’s rare I support all the Constitutional Amendments on a ballot. I may have to cast a No vote on Prop 4, just on general principle…
Tags:Don Huffines, gambling, Guns, hunting, Konni Burton, professional sports, Texas, Texas Constitutional Amendment
Posted in Austin, Guns, Texas | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2015
Time for another Texas vs. California update:
Texas is the best state for small businesses.
Supreme Court to hold hearing on mandatory union dues in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
“Transparent California, a watchdog website provided by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, revealed 19,728 former government retirees across California received monthly stipends of $8,333.34 or more — adding up to at least a $100,000 a year for each person.”
[Orange County] government workers receive an “average full-career pension of $81,372 for miscellaneous [employees], which includes all nonsafety retirees, and $99,366 for safety [mostly police and fire] retirees of all Orange County cities enrolled in CalPERS.”
Republicans manage to defeat California tax hikes.
California politicians excel at corruption and self-dealing. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“If money and household wealth follow people, then Texas is doing better than any other state in nearly every way.”
San Francisco drives last existing gun store out of the city with burdensome regulations.
Judge strikes down law requiring landlords to pay up to $50,000 in relocation fees to evicted tenants.
Texas continues to earn the highest possible credit ratings.
New law mandates that CalPERS and CalSTARS must stop investing in coal. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Stockton update: “After only one full budget year, the city has already broken three fundamental promises and is destined to return to insolvency within four years.”
Bankrupt supermarket chain Haggen has found buyers for some of its California stores.
This story is so strange I suspect it could only happen in California. (Playboy link, so it may be blocked at your place of work.) Despite the large number of guns. ($5 million for 1,200 guns? I call BS. That would mean each gun was slightly more expensive than the list price for a bolt-action Barrett .50 BMG sniper rifle. The photos mostly show pretty common hunting rifles.)
Tags:California, CalPERs, Democrats, Guns, Haggen, Orange County, Republicans, San Francisco, Stockton, Texas, unions, Welfare State
Posted in Democrats, Guns, Republicans, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Friday, October 9th, 2015
This is a reminder that Dwight Brown of Whipped Cream Difficulties and I are putting on a gunny/VRWC blog shooting meetup/Tweetup at the Eagle Peak Gun Range in Leander on Saturday, October 10, at 5 PM, to be followed by a group dinner at the Oasis at 7 PM. Bring ear and eye protection as well as any weapon you’d like to shoot (no full metal jacket ammo, as per range rules). You can come to the shoot and skip dinner, or vice versa.
If you’re interested in attending, drop me a line (lawrenceperson at gmail dot com) so I know how many people to expect at the range and for dinner).
Tags:Austin, Blog Meetup, Guns
Posted in Austin, Guns | No Comments »