Posts Tagged ‘Guns’

Ezell vs. Chicago: An Extremely Lazy Blogger’s Roundup

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

So Ezell vs. Chaicago has been decided, and the three-judge panel basically bitchslapped Chicago into the 21st Century. Basically, Chicago was saying 1.) You have to get firearms training at a licensed firing range to own a gun, and 2.) We don’t need no stinking firing ranges within the city limits, and the court tore them a new asshole for blatantly disregarding DC vs. Heller.

Even more dramatically, the ruling makes explicit parallels between first Amendment and Second Amendment restrictions, which the Brady Bunch and their liberal Democratic co-conspirators have been denying for years.

I think any decision where the gun-grabber ordinance in question is actually derided in the decision as “thumbing of the municipal nose at the Supreme Court” has to count as a pretty overwhelming victory for the Second Amendment.

If I were a hardcore gun blogger, I’d read the entire judgment, quote chunks from it and offer closely reasoned, pithy insights.

If I were a semi-hardcore gun blogger, I’d skim the decision and offer some quick insights.

However, because I’m feeling very lazy tonight, I’m merely going to link to the writeup over at Snowflakes in Hell, since Sebastian has provided a far better, and more insightful, post than I could on the subject.

As a bonus, in the post just below that, he tears into Rahm’s ridiculous shooting range ordinance, another blatant attempt to deprive Chicago residents of their Second Amendment via absurd regulations, such as:

  • Requires that range operators inspect every gun brought into the range for safety, and that the caliber is appropriate for an indoor range.
  • You must have a range master for every three shooting patrons. That range master must be on duty at all times. [Even by the standards of Chicago union featherbedding this is outrageous.]
  • Ranges may only sell ammo for use onsite, and must ensure no one leaves the range with unauthorized ammo.
  • Et Freaking cetera. “Rahm’s ordinance is basically a joke, and an insult. I can’t imagine anyone would even try to operate a range under these ridiculous standards, and I suspect that’s the whole idea.”

    Read the whole thing, on both posts.

    The Unexpected Return of This Week in Jihad

    Friday, June 10th, 2011

    I stopped doing This Week in Jihad because it was eating up too much of my time. But this week there were enough big Jihad-related stories to justify putting one up:

  • Michael Totten has an interesting interview with Claire Berlinski on the situation in Turkey. If Turkey put up a status update, it would read “Mood: Delusional.” Also, is it just me, or does Berlinski look an awful lot like Dr. Lisa Cuddy on House?
  • Rep. Peter King to hold a hearing on Muslim radicalization in U.S. prisons.
  • Extensive New York Times piece on the Cosmos Foundation, Turkish Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, Atlas Construction, and charter schools in Texas. NYT calls Gulen a moderate. JihadWatch disagrees. Also, Gulen has hired George W. Bush’s PR rep Karen Hughes.
  • You know that “unarmed peace flotilla”? Yeah, not so much.
  • Female Kuwaiti “activist” calls for the return of sexual slavery to keep rich Muslim men from committing adultery. Sisters are doing it to themselves. And somewhere, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is kicking himself.
  • Strafor analyzes the latest al Qaeda video and sees a message of defeat. “The very call to leaderless resistance is an admission of defeat and an indication that the jihadists might not be receiving the divine blessing they claim.” The also show how al Qaeda ignorance of American gun control laws (no, you can’t buy automatic weapons at a gun show, since you need to fill out a form, undergo a background check that can take up to 90 days, and have a local law enforcement “chief” authorize your form (among other requirements), and that assumes you live in a state they haven’t been outlawed in) has lead to the arrests of several Jihadests looking to purchase them.
  • LinkSwarm for Monday, May 9, 2011

    Monday, May 9th, 2011

    A few links of potential interest:

  • “Candygram.”
  • Al-Zarqawi complains about his new roommate.
  • Cracks in the Eurozone. Deficits have consequences.
  • “Each hid his homosexuality, each was racist, each took pains to manufacture favorable coverage, each was driven by petty hatreds instead of shining ideals.” Who’s that? Would you believe Gandhi and Malcolm X?
  • I don’t know why people think the SEIU is a communist organization. I mean, it’s not like they held a parade with the communist party and marched with pro-communist signs. Wait, what?
  • I’m in favor of allowing concealed carry in more place, but not extending that expanded right only to state government employees. That’s like letting legislators drive 10 mile and hour faster than the speed limit because its “convenient.” If this bill was for all CHL holders, I’d be for it, but it’s not. Evidently some animals are more equal than others.
  • Having My Gun And Eating it Too

    Friday, April 29th, 2011

    Last Saturday, I had a combined movie viewing/birthday party for Dwight and myself. Here’s Dwight’s report on the event, and here’s a picture of the cake, and the object depicted on the cake, which should seem familiar:

    One is a beautiful object filled with things that will kill you if you don't treat them with respect. The other is a gun.

    Books Received: Michael Totten’s The Road to Fatima Gate

    Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

    My copy of Michael Totten’s The Road to Fatima Gate came in today. Since I’m also an insane book collector (and since he does good work), I got an autographed copy. (One book collector gripe, Michael: If you’re going to send out autographed first editions in a USPS Priority mailing envelope, you should really use bubble wrap to protect it. Signed, a guy who has a business selling collectible books on the side.)

    Also, since I can’t resist a good meme, here’s a picture of the book in the now-traditional style (click to embiggen):

    Regular readers will no doubt recognize the gun.

    A Small LinkSwarm of Local News

    Thursday, March 24th, 2011

    A confluence of events (a cold, doing my taxes, and a miscellany of more minor concerns) has cut into my blogging time, so it might be a few days before my roundup piece on Libya is ready to see the light of day (and I may have to skip the usual This Week in Jihad as well). So here are a few bits of local news, including some on the the 2012 Senate race, to tide you over:

  • A call for Texas to follow Utah and Arizona by naming an official state gun, in this case the 1847 Walker Colt Revolver.
  • Holly Hunter has some interesting thoughts and statistics on Williamson County Redistricting numbers.
  • In Texas Senate race news, here’s an interview with Ted Cruz.
  • Also, Rick Perry vs. The World endorses Cruz.
  • Michael Williams comes out with a strong pro-drilling position.
  • Praise for Williams from the Beaumont Enterprise for having the courage to leave his current job on the Railroad Commission before running for the Senate.
  • A liberal radio station host is trying to draft actor Tommy Lee Jones to run as a Democrat for the Texas senate seat. Honestly, I suspect that Jones would have a lot better chance than anyone else whose name has been floated by the Democrats .
  • Bullettime (Guns Firing in Slow Motion)

    Friday, February 4th, 2011

    With snow and ice here in Austin, it’s been a bit of slow day. And what better for a slow day than some slow-motion gun porn?

    I chanced across one of these researching information on the Lugar for a story I’m writing, and thought it provided a nice view of the Lugar’s feed and ejection mechanism, giving viewers a chance to see how it differs from the M1911’s mechanism for accomplishing the same thing. So I concentrated on videos that show mechanism cycling rather than bullet impact.

    (None of these are my videos, I collected them off of YouTube, so I can’t take any credit (or any blame for the musical choices).)

    The Lugar:

    Here’s a M1911 Commander 45:

    Here’s a cutaway animation of how an M1911 works:

    Sig Sauer 22 and 9mm

    Here’s real slow motion of an M16 and an M1911:

    A Tanfoglio Gold Team (not sure the caliber, but similar vidoes have been for .38 Super):

    Here’s a Thompson submachine gun (one of which I fired once upon a time):

    A whole bunch of different guns:

    Finally, here’s a dad teaching his son to fire a gun for the first time. His three year old son. On a minigun. BEST DAD EVER!

    My Governor Can Blow Away Your Governor

    Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

    In nice, tight, one-inch groups.

    (Hat tip: The Right Side of Austin. )

    Advice for Journalists on How to Write About Guns

    Saturday, January 15th, 2011

    Over on NRO, Robert VerBruggen offers some sage advice for journalists on how write about guns without making yourself look like an idiot. Especially important is his second point: “If you’re going to write that a certain kind of gun is particularly dangerous, consult someone who knows something about guns first. Brady Campaign spokesmen don’t count.” The need for this point was painfully apparent with so many commentators describing Jared Lee Loughner’s Glock 19 as some sort of exotic killing machine, when in fact it is a very common type of semiautomatic pistol used by millions of law-abiding Americans.

    Or to put it in terms that a New York Journalist might understand: Imagine if I wrote that “Every condo in Manhattan gives their owner a two-car parking space,” or “All Hispanic New Yorkers are of Mexican ancestry.” You’d howl about how ignorant I am of New York. Well, that’s exactly the you seem to the rest of the country when you write about guns.

    However, I fear VerBruggen’s advice will fall on deaf ears. Many journalists in deep blue cities like New York or San Francisco seem to regard guns as inherently evil objects, and view learning about them with suspicion. They seem to wear their ignorance as a badge of honor, much like Manhattanites who brag that they’ve never visited a flyover state, or even left the island.

    Ignorance can be cured, but not willful ignorance. Many journalist would rather be wrong than Right.

    Republican Judge Killed by Left Wing Extremist Insane Lunatic

    Sunday, January 9th, 2011

    The good news is Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is alive and able to communicate. Sadly, Federal Judge John Roll, appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the bench in 1991 is dead. Roll received death threats over his ruling in an illegal alien case in 2009.

    Did accused shooter Jared Lee Loughner assassinate Judge Roll for political reasons?

    Hell no. Loughner killed Roll and five other people because he was a violent, unstable lunatic, and more and more evidence is coming out to that effect. As Arizona Senator John Kyl put it: “It’s probably giving him too much credit to ascribe a coherent political philosophy to him.”

    Despite that, the far left is still trying to pin this on Sarah Palin. I suspect that will work out for them almost as well as their “the Tea Party is racist” meme.

    Sometimes people do commit horrific acts of violence for easily-identifiable ideological reasons. Maj. Nidal Hasan’s Ft. Hood shooting spree is a classic example. Jared Lee Loughner’s shooting spree is not.