Fatal Road-Rage Shooting In Maryland

Shooter was New Jersey police officer. He is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter and is being held on $1 million bond.

Link.

A Brit Joins The NRA

No clue. No clue at all.

They have a cursory look at my driving licence, then ask me to select my weapon. I've no idea. "A small one. For an idiot," I offer.

What I get is a 45 that shoots nine-millimetre bullets (mostly in the wrong direction, it turns out, but that's me not the gun). It's alarmingly heavy and complicated. Even loading the weapon requires thumb strength and dexterity I seem to lack. After the fourth time of showing me how it is done, my guide loses patience. "You left-handed?" he asks. "Or just retarded?"

The NRA Wins Again

That's the title of this screed in the New Yorker.

Ha!

But they say it like it's a BAD thing...

First Rabbi Into Buchenwald

That's Rabbi Schacter on the left.

He died last week at the age of 95. Obit in the NYT:

The smoke was still rising as Rabbi Herschel Schacter rode through the gates of Buchenwald. 

It was April 11, 1945, and Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army had liberated the concentration camp scarcely an hour before. Rabbi Schacter, who was attached to the Third Army’s VIII Corps, was the first Jewish chaplain to enter in its wake. 

Easy Listening

Second Amendment scholar Joyce Lee Malcolm appears on PBS:

I've read her books but never seen her on TV. It's great that she was on PBS, too, instead of preaching to the choir. She very calmly and very effectively makes the points that need to be made about the AWB and magazine limits and the Heller case.

Semiautomatics For The People

This graphic is sheer genius.

Support The Boulder Airlift! Keep 'em flyin'!

h/t No Lawyers - Only Guns And Money

Where Form 4473s Go To Die

Caption: "Cindy VanDyne scanning records from a gun retailer in 2010 at the A.T.F.’s National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W.Va"

NYT.

Mete The Press

Wayne LaPierre to David Gregory:

“We're in the District of Columbia right now, and possession of that magazine is illegal, even if it's not loaded. Even if it's not connected to a gun. It's still illegal. But you won't be charged, and do you know why? It's because you're white. If Ice-T was holding that magazine, he would be in jail before this program was off the air.”

           - I made that up, but wouldn't it be great if life were really like that?

ETA: I just realized that Matt G had a similar thought before I did. Hell, I'm gettin' old.

Marylanders Support Second Amendment

There was a huge turnout to protest Gov. O'Malley's gun control bill yesterday. Maryland already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.

Even the WaPo said it was a big demonstration:

Gun rights advocates marshaled one of the biggest crowds to descend on Annapolis for a bill hearing in years Wednesday, packing the halls of the Maryland State House complex to oppose Gov. Martin O’Malley’s plan to institute some of the nation’s strictest gun-control laws.

Women were prominent:

Outside the State House, opponents of O’Malley’s plan made it clear that he would be in for a battle. Many adorned their clothing with “Guns Save Lives” stickers and lined up to sign petitions against the bill. Placards bounced to the rhythm of speeches. One woman held up a cardboard sign that said, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny.”

Kelly Cook, 23, a college student from Arnold, held up a sign that said: “Why do you want to fingerprint me? I am not a criminal.”

“That’s what I want to ask Governor O’Malley,” she said.

And:

More than four hours into the hearing, a Connecticut-based lobbyist for the gun industry drew the most heated reaction from the Democratic-controlled panel.

“The restrictions in this bill are arbitrary. Nothing in it will prevent another Newtown or Columbine,” said Jake McGuigan of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, based in Newtown.

“You’re coming from Newtown, Connecticut, to tell us an assault-weapons ban would not save lives?” asked Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery).

Like others from the gun industry, McGuigan did not back down. He stressed that Connecticut has an assault-weapons ban and that the guns used in the shooting that killed 20 students there were legally owned by the killer’s mother.

With regard to Maryland, McGuigan cited homicide statistics from 2011 that showed just two of nearly 400 killings statewide were committed with rifles that could be banned under O’Malley’s legislation. Outside the hearing, the crowd in an overflow room applauded at the response.

Jeffrey Reh, general counsel for firearm manufacturer Beretta, which has a plant in Accokeek, warned lawmakers that O’Malley’s bill, which outlaws 45 types of weapons and their knockoffs, could have a severe impact on the company’s business. He also said that because gun manufacturers in Maryland are required to register as firearm dealers, it’s unclear whether the company would still be allowed to export guns for sale in other states.

“We’re confronted with a state government that wants to ban the products we make,” Reh said. “Not surprisingly, we are concerned.”

And more women (and girls, too):

Hope Ingraham of Gaithersburg said she doesn’t own a gun but brought her 9-year-old daughter, Zahira, to the spectacle because she thinks that constitutional rights should not be infringed upon.

“I used to be really anti-gun until [Hurricane] Katrina and I watched all of that Superdome stuff,” she said, “and that’s when I realized — the government lacks the ability to protect us when we need it most.”

After six hours waiting to testify, Athena Andrzejewski of Ellicott City was told that she would not be called before the hearing would be adjourned at 9 p.m.

“I expected a big crowd but not this big,” Andrzejewski said. “I’m glad it’s this big. It means we’re not just going to take whatever comes. It means we are going to fight.”

I Felt A Great Disturbance In The Force...

...as if a million gun-control advocates suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

The Washington Post published this opinion piece Tuesday night:

On Gun Control, Banning Semi-automatics Isn't The Answer

I don’t particularly like the AR-15, although it is one of the most popular rifles in the country. Three million have been sold, according to an NRA researcher. But to define it as an assault rifle because of how it looks — with a pistol grip, adjustable stock, flash suppressor and “high capacity” magazine — is silly.

You want to see a dangerous-looking gun, look at the one President Obama was photographed skeet shooting with at Camp David last summer. That shotgun of his was big enough to take down a woolly mammoth. When I pulled the trigger on the AR-15, one high-powered round came out. Maybe I hit something; maybe I didn’t. Obama can’t miss. He could clear a room with one double-barreled blast.

Why ban one and not the other? And once you start banning semiautomatics, where do you stop?

If gun control advocates were truly serious and not just well meaning, they’d be focusing a lot more on education and mental health. For instance, everybody knows that our children are being adversely affected by violent video games. So why aren’t schools deconstructing video games as part of the curriculum, explaining to students how the military uses these same war games to condition troops to kill without remorse? 

It just goes on and on like that. This piece is by one of WaPo's local opinion writers, Courtland Milloy.

Absolutely shocking that WaPo would publish something like this.

That Map of Handgun-Permit Holders

Even the techie online mag cnet.com is debunking the map of pistol-permit holders published by the Journal News:

The Journal News, a local New York paper, decides to post a map of all those who own handguns in the area. Like so much that's online, it contains errors -- massive errors.

...and:

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that some of these permits dated from the 1930s.  

Link.

The "New" South

From the Washington Post "Fact Checker" blog:

Last week we looked at a National Rifle Association ad that made misleading claims about security at Sidwell Friends School, which President Obama’s children attend. Now let’s look at a tough anti-NRA ad sponsored by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, an umbrella organization of 48 religious and other organizations.

The target of this ad is Rep. John Barrow of Georgia — the last white Democratic member of Congress from the Deep South. The CSGV video intercuts scenes from a campaign ad that Barrow ran in 2012 with television footage of the massacre of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. It certainly packs an emotional punch — but is it fair and accurate?

"...the last white Democratic member of Congress from the Deep South."?

Is that really true?

WOW!

And they accuse the Republicans of being polarized!

"I know you are but what am I? I know you are but..."

The hell with it. A pox on both their houses.

Via Shall Not Be Questioned.

"Gun Show Loophole" Bill Dies In Virginia Senate

This is great news, because the only way to enforce background checks on private sales is to require universal gun registration, and we ain't goin' there!

Via VCDL bulletin.

WaPo: The NRA Is Awesome!

Boy Scout camp

Yesterday's Washington Post: 

 “What they do well is they really get people out,” said Illinois state Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D), who heads the House committee that was to consider the assault-weapons ban until gun owners, spurred by the local NRA affiliate, overwhelmed legislators with calls and e-mails. “That’s democracy. I can’t fault them for it. I have to applaud them for it.”

and:

“They can produce a small army for Election Day, and every elected official knows it,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, a newly elected Democratic congressman, who was a state legislator when the tide turned in Wisconsin.

Police seizing guns in California

Captured Taliban Firearms

This is a Martini-Metford cavalry carbine, with a bicycle chain as a sling.

Interesting article from the NYT.

Mayor Mike Makes A Mis-step

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has likened a teachers' union to the NRA:

Of all the polarizing things Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said and done over the years, from banning large sugary drinks to supporting congestion pricing, few have generated the sort of viral backlash that has unexpectedly mounted after his weekly radio show on Friday.

The mayor had embarked on a lengthy stream of consciousness on the need to negotiate a new teacher evaluation plan with the United Federation of Teachers. Toward the end, Mr. Bloomberg, almost as an aside, likened the teachers’ union to groups like the National Rifle Association and others in which he said a few leaders were out of sync with large numbers of rank-and-file members. 

NYT.

This is the same union that was once headed by Albert Shanker. He attained immortality when he was the butt of a famous joke in Woody Allen's movie Sleeper. The hero is transported into a dystopian future. When he asks what happened to the world as he knew it, he is told, "Our history books tell us that the old world was destroyed when a man named Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear warhead."

For his part, Shanker is said to have loved the joke.

Publish Or Perish

The New York Times has covered the controversy regarding the publication of the names and addresses of pistol-permit holders in Westchester and Putnam counties by the Journal News. The item in the Times generated a huge number of comments, evenly split between pro- and anti-publication.

Two of my favorites:

What has happened to the left that I used to be a proud member? This has nothing to do with protecting your children or helping public safety. This is pure revenge on a group the left despises … the NRA. The comments are beyond the pale in their stereotyping and demonizing these people. Just because someone might have a permit, doesn’t mean they have a gun or even belong to or support the NRA. Maybe the person is in law enforcement, maybe the person is an abused wife, wanting protection.

And:

We, on the left, objected loudly when the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortions were made public. Are our ethics so situational that we now embrace the tactics of our opponents? How sad for us.

Record Number Of Americans Oppose Handgun Ban

Even with the killings in Newtown as a backdrop, a new Gallup poll shows 74 percent of Americans now support the right to possess a handgun, while just 24 percent would support a ban.

WaPo.
Sent from my iPhone

WaPo: Guns Are A Part Of American Culture

Link.

Almost unbelievable that they would publish this, but I think the WaPo's editorial calculation is that they are finally going to get Congress to confiscate guns (in strict compliance with the Second Amendment, of course!) so they can afford the appearance of fairness, after mercilessly slandering American gun owners for nearly half a century.

It's Official: 8,000 New Members A Day

ABC News:

NRA News anchor Ginny Simone said Thursday that in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, membership surged "with an average of 8,000 new members a day."