Republican “xeroxes” a bill: Leftymedia chants indignantly.
Democrat not only copies and pastes a bill from a special interest group, but allows that special interest’s registered lobbyist to sit in in the role of a legislator to introduce and read the bill into the record?
{crickets}
Berg’s Seventh Law may be the single most prescient thing I’ve ever written.
I’ve never been much of a movie-goer.
Part of it is that for much of my childhood – the part where real movie addicts got “going to the theater” in their blood – my hometown didn’t even have a theater. There were always other things to do.
Part of it is that I spend so very little time in front of the TV watching things – and while I spend plenty of time in front of the computer, it’s almost always writing, either for work or, well, this. The rare times I sit still and try to just consume, I usually fall asleep.
So the list of great movies I’ve never seen, or seen parts of, but not in sequence, or not the the whole thing, is a very long one.
One of them, until this past weekend, had been Schindler’s List. Believe it or not.
But it was on FX on Saturday night. And I took a rare night of doing nothing, and chugged a Red Bull and watched the whole thing.
Never seen it? Don’t go in on a night when you’re feeling down on the human race. Here’s the scene where the Nazis decide to ship the Jews out of the Krakow Ghetto:
It gets worse, and more depressing.
It’s because humanity, at its core, is rotten. That fact is at the core of the Judeo-Christian worldview, and it’s been proven in the absolute human absence of that worldview, which was one way you could describe the Holocaust.
How to describe humanity? I’ll leave it – partly for a little comic relief – to one of the greatest philosophers of our time, Dr. Perry Cox:
With that in mind, what actually separates us – the United State of America – from what you saw in the video above?
Two centuries of small-“l” liberal democracy? Sure.
A legal system that, at the moment, works? You bet.
But Germany was a western country. It was part of Western Civilization; the home of Bach, Händel, Schubert, Einstein (speaking culturally, not in terms of borders), Kafka, Beethoven. Not a “liberal democracy”, necessarily, by the time Hitler took office – Germany had suffered some very hard times.
And that’s the point.
It took a bad outcome to a war, and a decade and a half of economic misery to turn what was one of the wealthiest, most educated “first world” nations, the culture of Mozart and Schubert, into the stormtroopers. It took a demigogue at the head of a mass movement, one who tapped into long-standing cultural antipathies toward a cultural boogeyman at an opportune time, to turn the nation of Göthe into the nation of Amon Göth:
Has our Democracy ever been threatened with this?
No – leaving out all of history’s imponderable “what ifs“, we have not.
And how do we assure it stays that way?
You really have two options:
Have faith that government will always stay good. Or at least “not evil”. That judges and courts and laws and tradition will always hamstring not only the tyrants and murderers, but the tyrants who are murderers. That, irreducibly, means trusting to human nature. And it can, hypothetically, work. And it can, hypothetically, fail miserably.
But that is the leap of faith that Second Amendment opponents like Alice Hausman and Heather Martens and Rahm Emanuel want you, The People, to take.
The other option?
Make sure the people – no, The People – are equipped to make certain government stays on the straight and narrow. Make sure the people have not only the right to tell the government “you’re getting out of bounds”, but the ability to enforce it.
Want to see what the Second Amendment is about? This is it. Preventing what you see in Schindler’s List – preventing government from turning on the people, from metastasizing into a self-sustaining engine of evil.
That is the choice; trust in human nature’s desire to curb its worst aspects, or counterbalance it with sheer numbers.
I’m not saying the likes of Alice Hausman and Heather Martens are depraved totalitarians.
I am saying that depraved totalitarians need a society full of Hausmans and Martenses and Bidens and Emanuels and Michael Paymars, people more willing to empower government in spite of knowing the failings of human nature than they are to trust The People, to have a shot.
And that’s why some of us fight for the Second Amendment.
Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talkradio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!
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To: Rahm Emanuel, Capo Di Tutti Politici, City of Chicago
From: Mitch Berg, Ornery Peasant
Re: Today’s US 7th Circuit Decision
Dear Mayor Emanuel,
That is all.
A few days ago, I published a slightly-tongue-in-cheek Urban Renewal plan, based around selling houses in blighted neighborhoods to people with stakes in the community and the means – firearms – to defend them.
Not a few times in my life I’ve shaken my head at the onrush of events and thought “My fiction is the tortoise; fact is the hare”.
A non-profit in Houston is giving shotguns to law-abiding citizens in crime-ridden areas.
I try to stay civil about most things.
Unlike my more demented detractors (you know who you are), I try to argue issues, not personalities.
So with that in mind, some take umbrage when I call the sides in the gun control debate “Real Americans” and “orcs”. It’s really fairly simple; either you support the Bill of Rights, all ten Amendments of it, the Second and Tenth along with the First and Fourth, at the very least in terms of their intent, or you might as well be a North Korean kommissar.
Anyway – the Minnesota State Senate yesterday voted on a resolution upholding the Second Amendment.
And the DFL voted against it – voted against the Second Amendment – on a straight line party vote.
What this means is that the Senate DFL wants you to know that “we’re not coming for your hunting rifles and shotguns – yet. We just want to leave our options open”.
This photo needs to be sent to every outstate, exurban and second-tier suburban household in districts with DFL Senators. To the DFL, the Constitution is just a series of means to their ends, and “liberty” is a quaint hindrance.
At least some police departments are, finally, teaching the victim pool in our nation’s “gun free zones” that sitting quietly and waiting to be butchered doesn’t actually prevent any deaths.
Law enforcement agencies have begun adopting a new policy on so-called “active shooters,” encouraging civilians to take safety into their own hands and take down gunmen who threaten them at work or school.
This approach is gaining momentum in the wake of tragic incidents in Newtown, Connecticut and the Oikos University shooting in Oakland.
At San Jose Evergreen Community College, police have trained teachers, staff and students to follow specific guidelines during this kind of emergency.
The campus police chief credits this training for their coordinated response last December when a gunman was thought to have entered one of their buildings. “Some folks even said I know now whether it is time to hide or the right time to fight back,” said Chief Raymund Aguirre.
Fighting back works.
As we saw in the Clackamas Mall shooting, three days before the Sandy Hook shooting last winter, fighting back with a gun works even better.
Eventually someone will put two and two together; if resisting murderers is good, resisting them with lethal force is better.
We’ll have a related story – and one that ties in with my “Urban Renewal” piece the other day – coming up at noon.
Last week, it came to our attention that the local lefty alt-media was shilling for the DFL meme that anti-gun Representatives felt “intimidated” by the presence of all the gun owners – people with carry permits who’ve passed criminal background checks, and are thus most likely less apt to resort to violence than, well, the Representatives and Senators on the panels – in the audience.
I feel I should respond to this.
I’ll neither confirm nor deny that I have a carry permit, a handgun, or permission to carry in the Capitol complex. If I do, I would never carry openly, primary out of deference to the warped sensitivities of the ones complaining; “pick your battles”, I always say.
But I’ll urge you, gun-grabbing DFL legislator, to be intimidated.
Be intimidated by the fact that I, like most of the pro-Gun Rights people I know, know more about the issue than you do. Be intimidated that I make the anti-gun, pro-gun control argument better than you, and better than Heather Martens, for that matter – and can then turn around and destroy it. With facts, history, the law, and a lot of style.
Be intimidated by the fact that I, and most of the pro-Gun Rights people I know, take that superior knowledge out to my fellow MInnesotans, one by one, and win them over, just as we have been for 25 years now.
Be intimidated by the fact that I am one member of what was, 10 years ago, one of the most amazing grassroots political movements in Minnesota political history, the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance which, with no help from corporate donors or Rockefellers or PACs, started rolling a big heavy rock up a very high, steep hill in 1995 – and won the issue in 2003, playing a key role in flipping the House of Representatives along the way.
Be intimidated by the fact that GOCRA, and other gun rights groups and the people they represent, are coming back bigger and tougher and more focused than ever before.
Be intimidated by the fact that our movement adds more people every day than will ever show up at a gun control rally, and that every one of those people understands the issue better than any of the anti-gunners, and most of you legislators as well.
Be intimidated by the fact that we have energy, savvy, and the grim determination to crush you, rhetorically speaking. We’ve been through this before. We’ve run the marathon – the seven-year battle to enact Shall Issue. You’ve run the sprint. Who’s going to be still up and standing and fighting in a year? Two years? Four years?
My gun – if I have one, and if I’m carrying it? That’s literally, figuratively and statistically the least of your worries.
Columbine massacre survivor Evan Todd has sent an open letter to the President and, by extension, all of the gun grabbers in government and their supporters.
It’s below the jump.
We Real Americans – that defined as “Americans who support all ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the Second and Tenth as devoutly as the First and Fourth – know that giving any ground with the gun grabbers is a fool’s bargain. The metrocrat Orcs will exploit any opening we Real Americans give them to harass us, badger us, turn us – the most law-abiding people in this country – into criminals.
The “assault weapon” bans are – or were – stupid, and would not affect crime in the least (or at least would never reduce it). Magazine restrictions are also of no actual value as anything but harassing the law-abiding, as well as putting them (in rare cases) at a disadvantage to criminals.
But it gets worse.
This just in from GOCRA: The worst of them all is up on the dock now:
The most dangerous bill this session is not a magazine ban, or an “assault weapon” ban. It’s universal registration, masquerading as “universal background checks.”
It’s called SF 458, and it will be heard on THURSDAY at the state capitol. GOCRA will be there to fight it. Will you?
I’ll give it my best shot. Hope you can too.
Why is this bill so bad? For starters, because it’ll tack $25 onto the sale prices of a firearm, plus $25 for permit to purchase – which makes firearms $50 harder to obtain for the poor (who are, after all, the ones the DFL wants to disarm…first).
Worse? It’s registration! It doesn’t go by the name, but that’s exactly what it is; a paper trail leading, over time, to every single gun in the United States.
This bill needs to be not just defeated; it needs to be crushed and humiliated. Any outstate DFLer that supports it needs to feel the wrath of every gun owner in their district, sports or self-defense. Any Republican who supports this abomination must be primaried and expunged from public life.
No retreat.
No surrender.
No compromise on the rights of the law-abiding.
No mercy for the politicians who get it wrong.
Here’s the hearing schedule; all hearings are in room 15 of the State Capitol. Get there two hours early to get a seat in the hearing room, or use overflow seating with a closed-circuit feed of the hearings.
Please let us know if you plan to attend (and which session) by sending an email to volunteer@gocra.org.
Thursday, February 21
Noon: SF 235, 458, 69
Thursday, February 21
6 p.m.: Public testimony on SF 235, 503, 69, 458, 557, 520, 400, 413 and 568
Friday, February 22
Noon: SF 503, 557, 520, 400, 413, 568
You can read summaries of all gun grab bills at the Gocra website.
And remember; don’t commit a felony! Only liberals get away with gun crimes, so please remember to notify the DPS as required if you intend to carry at the Capitol. GOCRA’s simple instructions are right here.
The final part of Alice Hausman’s HF241` – her gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – may be the strangest, most vaguely-written, dumbest of all. It’d ban any…:
3.23(5) shotgun with a revolving cylinder
It’d seem to be aimed at the big, scary looking “Streetsweeper”-class shotguns, which do, indeed, have a “revolving cylinder” holding their rounds…:
And it’s not “semi-automatic” (not to get technical, but that means “weapon that uses the force of either the explosion or recoil to eject the empty cartridge and chamber a new round”; the Sweeper has a wind-up spring).
But it said “shotgun with a revolving cylinder”. That also includes the Rossi Circuit Judge…:
…a popular .410-gauge varmint plinker.
And for that matter, it includes the extremely popular Taurus Judge (no relation)…:
…which is a pistol, sure – but a .410 gauge shotgun with a revolving cylinder (that also happens to fire .45 Long Colt pistol rounds as well.
Look – we get it. Alice Hausman is subcontracting her bill-writing out to Heather Martens – who, herself, knows nothing about guns whatsoever.
The question isn’t “are Hausman and Martens and the rest of the DFL metrocrats on the Public Safety committee talking out their asses on the subject”. That’s a given.
The question is “aren’t you DFLers embarassed?”
Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – now turns to shotguns.
Shotguns are a fearsome weapon, close-in – deadlier than assault rifles in some cases; British special forces have long used the Benelli semi-automatic hunting shotgun as their favorite weapon in the jungle.
But this part of Hausman’s bill is no less bizarre and ill-informed than the rest of it; it’d ban any…:
3.16(4) semi-automatic shotgun that has one or more of the following:
(i) a pistol grip or thumbhole stock;
(ii) any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;
(iii) a folding or telescoping stock;
(iv) a fixed magazine capacity in excess of seven rounds; or
(v) an ability to accept a detachable magazine;
It’s aimed, seemingly, at weapons like the Russian-built Saiga…:
…which is basically a 12-gauge semi-automatic AK47.
But the Mossberg 930 – it’s semi-automatic, and holds eight rounds…:
…is also covered.
In the meantime? It doesn’t cover pump-action shotguns with all the same goodies…:
…which are almost exactly as deadly. But “pump” sounds quaint, while “semi-automatic” sounds, if you’re a DFL staffer or (who are we kidding) Heather Martens, vaguely evil.
I keep saying “it gets dumber”. Because it does. Stay tuned.
The next stop on our dissection of HF241 – Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – is, I’ll be honest, mind-bogglingly obtuse.
It would ban…:
(3) semi-automatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has one or more of the following:
(i) any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;
(ii) a folding, telescoping, or thumbhole stock;
(iii) a shroud attached to the barrel, or that partially or completely encircles the barrel, allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel; or
(iv) the capacity to accept a detachable magazine at any location outside of the pistol grip;
This is aimed at the various semi-automatic pistols that have been teased into a vaguely military-looking appearance, like the “Uzi Pistol”
…which are, literally, pistols with little collapsible stocks on them. They are mostly famous for appearing in movies in the hands of gang-bangers, which is no doubt why Heather Martens some DFL staffer added them to the bill.
But it also includes our old friend the Mauser C96…:
…which can add a stock to make it a light carbine (for horse-mounted troops in the 1800s), and is a big collectible. No, I had a friend who owned one. It’s not that far-out.
(I didn’t forget the Browning HP35…
_with_stock.jpg/220px-Browning_HP_(Finnish)_with_stock.jpg)
…which the DFL staff and/or Heather Martens didn’t think about, apparently because it’s not appeared in any gang-banger movies or TV shows, but also has a 13 round magazine, so the DFL will want to ban it anyway…)
Later today: Yes, this bill gets dumber still.
A Virginia Beach pizzeria shows how the Second Amendment movement is winning mainstreet:
Slice by slice, one Virginia Beach pizza shop is showing its support for the Second Amendment by offering fifteen percent off pies to gun owners.
“All they have to do is show me that they’re carrying a weapon or they can show me their concealed weapons permit and they can get the discount,” says All Around Pizza owner, Jay Laze.
Laze started the offer after a Utah frozen yogurt shop made headlines earlier this month for also giving gun toters discounts.
Note to Minnesota companies: did you see how many people turned out for both gun rallies over the past three weeks? 1,200 on a Saturday at a rally put on by a regular schmo who just wanted to make a difference? Close to 200 for a Wednesday morning rally that got no promotion and no advertising, and wasn’t even affiliated with a gun group?
You want some of those numbers through your door?
“I thought it was a great idea and I was wondering why nobody here was doing it,” he says. “It should be happening all around the country.”
That reminded me of an “urban renewal” idea I had a few years back. I may touch on that tomorrow or Wednesday.
…”there are no civilian uses for an AR-15″.
Detroit-area man repels two would-be armed robbers.
There is something to be said, when one is facing two people with handguns, for having the most intimidating-looking gun in the building.
There are libs who would say “well, maybe it’s just the receptionist, owner and security guard’s time”.
The next section of HF 241 – Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – is a little bit confusing:
3.4(2) semi-automatic pistol, or any semi-automatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle with a fixed magazine, that has the capacity to accept more than seven rounds of ammunition;
Does this section mean “any semi-automatic pistol with a magazine capacity of over seven rounds” is banned, as well as fixed-magazine rifles? Or does it only refer to “semi-automatic pistols with fixed magazines of greater than seven rounds”?
I’m not trying to be tendentious here; it could refer to semi-auto pistols with fixed magazines, although I can think of only one…:
…the Mauser C96, and it has an eight-round fixed magazine.
But I suspect it means “semi auto pistols with more than seven round magazines, or any semi-auto rifle with a fixed magazine of greater than seven rounds”.
Which means this pistol…:
…the classic Colt M1911 .45 calibre with its seven round magazine, is legal, while this one…:
…the SIG P220 .45 with its eight-round magazine, is not.
Huh?
Beyond that? “Semi-automatic rifles with fixed magazines” holding more than seven rounds include…:
…Grampa’s M1 Garand from World War 2.
The WW2-era Swedish Ljungmann I used to own?
Ten-round semi-detachable magazine (you could detach them, but only for cleaning or clearing jams).
Or the SKS – a Russian design that’s become one of the most popular deer-hunting rifles in America?
Yep, it’s got the ten-round fixed magazine. It’s cheap (under $300 up until before the election) and ubiquitous – and, apparently, an “assault weapon” in Alice Hausman’s curious little world.
HF 241 – Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – has morphed from a list of ugly-looking army-type guns into a recipe book written by people who don’t understand much about guns, but know they really really don’t like them.
Rather than write one long article about this deeply stupid bill, I’m going to break it down in terms of its pure, specious illogic over the next day or so.
The first part of the bill bans any…:
(1) semi-automatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has one or more of the following:
(i) a pistol grip or thumbhole stock;
(ii) any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;
(iii) a folding or telescoping stock; or
(iv) a shroud attached to the barrel, or that partially or completely encircles the barrel, allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel;
Put briefly, if the rifle has a detachable magazine (the thing that holds the bullets) it can’t have a pistol grip, a forward handgrip, an adjustable stock or – this is confusing – the wrong kind of thingie wrapped around the barrel.
So in other words, this Ruger Mini-14 is legal…:
…while this one is illegal…:
…even though the two are functionally exactly identical.
Exactly. As in, there is no difference, down to and including the magazine size.
Oh, it gets dumber. Yes, the bill would ban this rifle…:
…which is functionally exactly identical to this rifle here:
Both are Ruger 10/22s, perhaps the most ubuquitous .22 caliber plinking rifle in the country. They are mechanically identical – but one has furniture that offends Alice Hausman’s sensibilities.
Dumber still? If you like sniping at varmints, this 10/22 is just as illegal as the “tacti-cool” one above:
It’s the same gun, with the “thumbhole stock”. And if you want to have an adjustable stock, so your kids can shoot the same rifle you do?
Yep. Banned.
Every last one of them is precisely mechanically the same; same ten-round detachable magazine (it pops out of the stock just ahead of the trigger guard), same low-power .22 round.
In other words, Hausman’s gun grab isn’t aimed at even the most tangential definition of “Deadliness”; it’s entirely focused on cosmetic features that have nothing to do with a weapon’s effect.
They get dumber. More later today.
Chicago-area National Guardsman survives Afghanistan; gets killed at home:
On February 2, Cook, was shot and killed while in a car near his grandmother’s East Chicago house where he was taking Antoine for a visit. The veteran was found on top of his little boy, shielding him from the 15 bullets that pierced the car.
” He saved his son he made sure that before he left the last thing he did make sure his son was okay,” said Norwood.
Antoine was hit, too, in the left leg. Another bullet skimmed his right and a third grazed the toddler’s head.
Police believe Cook’s murder was a case of mistaken identity, possible retaliation for another shooting just days before. The couple was planning their wedding, and a future.
And I’ll start a countdown before some lib on Twitter says “Hey! Indiana’s not Illinois! They’re a shall-issue state with relatively liberal (meaning conservative) gun laws!”
Yeah. But East Chicago is not just part of the Chicago metroplex; it’s a run-down industrial suburb full of oil storage tanks and down-market housing; it is more or less to Chicago what Bayonne is to New York.
It’s a blip of Chicago-style violence, along with Gary and Hammond (and, downstate, Indianapolis) in a state that’s relatively placid by comparison.
It’s not the guns. It’s the sociology. Big, Democrat-controlled cities full of the social pathologies they bring are just plain more dangerous.
I sent the following to Nick Coleman – the “Executive Editor” of Twin Cities’ videoleftyblog The Uptake, which appears to have jettisoned all pretense of being anything but, well, a videoleftyblog – after reading his email to the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance last night:
Mr. Coleman,
I caught your note to Andrew Rothman on Facebook.
As a rigidly law-abiding gun owner, I have a special interest in policing my own.
So if you would please: from whom are you getting this “growing sense” at the Capitol?
Any actual legislators you could name? Did they have complaints about any specific behavior, from any particular attendees?
If they felt intimidated, was there a reason they didn’t notify Capitol Security – who said, Mr. Rothman noted, that the crowd was better-behaved than most?
Finally, Mr. Coleman – as you have publicly acknowledged being a carry permit holder, how do people “find it possible” do do anything around you, knowing that you may be armed? It’s a serious question.
Thanks in advance.
Mitch Berg
Uppity Peasant
I’m not exactly expecting an answer. The one time Nick answered a question of mine, it was…
…well, memorable.
I used to read a lot of liberal bloggers. I don’t so much anymore; part of it’s the time; part of it is that there are so few good ones.
A few Minnesota liberal blogs – one in particular, but I’m not naming names – have a particularly annoying habit when they get pressed in an argument with a rare conservative commenter; if it’s not going well for them, one of the blog’s writers will dig hard to wrench context hard enough to find some sort of offense in the comment; he’ll feign the Victorian Vapours at the (contrived) offense…
…which has the side-effect of taking the focus of the debate off of, well, the debate.
I’m not sure I’m surprised to hear this next story – that the Minnesota DFL is using the same precise tactic after having been shredded in the marketplace of public opinion last week.
I am a little surprised at the person asking the questions.
From: Nick Coleman <[redacted]@[The Uptake].org>
Date: Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 8:15 AM
Subject: guns at capitol query
To: [redacted]@gocra-mn.org
Joe, Andrew, et al:
There is a growing sense at the Capitol that the presence of so many guns during last week’s gun control hearings affected the process, or even intimidated Legislators. Would you please comment today for a story I am writing for The UpTake?
Is it possible to debate guns in a room full of guns?
Thanks,
Nick Coleman
Executive Editor, The UpTake
www.theuptake.org
651-747-[redacted]
Oh, good lord.
The “Growing Sense” is weasel words for “a conclusion that we can’t actually substantiate”.
A little background here: a carry permittee – a person who has passed a background check and taken a training course – can get permission to carry in the Capitol and the State Office Buildings by informing the head of Capitol security they intend to do so.
And those notifications spiked big-time before Gun Week, last week, as carry permittees – out of symbolism or the practical desire not to have to sweat storing their firearms in their cars – filed with the capitol cops.
Are some legislators intimidated by the existence of firearms? No doubt.
Are they right to be intimidated by a population that is two orders of magnitude less likely to commit any significant crime than the general public?
No more than they would be to feel “intimidated” by exercise of free speech, worship, press (or radio) or assembly – although some of them are. And they’re wrong then, too.
And the cutesy final question: “Is it possible to debate guns in a room full of guns?” Given the reality – carry permittees are safer to be around than just about anyone – the answer is “just as possible as it is in a room full of speech, assembly or religion”.
But let’s cut the crap: the only “growing sense” is among the DFL Caucus’ PR flaks (and, let’s be honest, Alida Messinger and Carrie Lucking) that they need to do something good ‘n Alinsky-riffic to try to undercut the groundswell of popular opinion that swarmed the Capitol last week and humiliated the DFL representatives and their copy-and-pasted bills.
Andrew Rothman, VP of the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, had a response too. It’s below the jump. And it includes a classic story about Heather Martens, from the late Joel Rosenberg, that is perhaps one of the best examples of the hyperbolic hypocrisy of the gun-grabber movement…
…and its’ new stenographer, Nick Coleman.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
One problem with gun control is over-breadth. To keep firearms out of North Minneapolis, we must ban them statewide, even nationwide and perhaps worldwide, or else they’ll just trickle back in as people move around.
Maybe the problem is freedom of travel? That doesn’t appear anywhere in the Constitution or the amendments, it’s a right invented by the Supreme Court and the early cases dealt with travel Between states. But what about travel Within a single state? Can we limit that?
Perhaps Minneapolis could impose reasonable restrictions on travel into or out of North Minneapolis? Close off all but a few streets, set up a checkpoint and search everyone coming into the North Minneapolis Sterile Zone for ugly guns and high-capacity magazines. That would create a safe and peaceful Gun Free Zone where it’s most needed but still allow people in rural Minnesota to keep firearms for hunting and self-defense. Nizel George would not have died in vain.
Reasonable restrictions on a right that’s not even mentioned in the Constitution. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Saint Paul could use the same idea – a wall around the city, with a fee to get out – for economic development!
The Constitution doesn’t mention anything about “no walls around cities!”
Can you imagine if a Republican legislator did this?
Video of registered gun-grabber lobbyist Heather Martens introducing a bill for “Representative” Alice Hausman last week at the Capitol.
The DFL – including committee chair Michael Paymar, the night of the hearings – claim that lobbyists speak the the committee all the time.
But this isn’t just “speaking to the committee”. This is introducing a bill for consideration by our elected representatives.
Hausman claimed that she had other committee assignments – but the committee she chairs didn’t meet on Wednesday night.
Are the people of Minnesota – even you liberals – going to tolerate having your representation handed over to registered lobbyists?
The Strib “Hot Dish” notes that Rep. Alice “The Phantom” Hausman is taking some flak over her “bump and run” act last week; as we noted last week, Hausman introduced several gun grab bills, but didn’t stick around to hear the testimony:
Hausman excused herself Wednesday morning after introducing the assault weapons bill, saying she had another appointment, and did not attend Thursday’s session focusing on her bill to ban larger ammunition magazines.
Hausman said she had other commitments as a committee chair and was told her bills would not be voted on. Rather, Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, chairman of the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee, said ideas contained in many of the bills would be included in a larger, gun-violence measure that will be assembled and voted on later this month.
Now, this brings up one surprise and two issues.
The surprise: Rachel Stassen-Berger is flirting with reporting something that might conceivably not advance the DFL’s interest. I thought I saw a flying pig along 394 this morning. Kudos, Rachel!
The first issue: while Second Amendment supporters were piqued at Hausman for fleeing any questioning of her gun grab bills, the big problem was that she turned that job over to a registered lobbyist. If a Republican – any Republican – did this on any issue, the assembled media elite, the Schecks and Cronans and Stassen-Bergers that prowl the Capitol, would be asking some very probing questions.
The other issue? I’ll add emphasis:
That meant that Hausman, who is not on the public safety committee, was “not a decision-maker,” she said, and was presenting bills that were put together by Protect Minnesota. She said she meant no disrespect to the testifiers.
Remember last year, when Alida Messinger’s “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” paid for a chanting campaign against the “American Legislative Exchange Committee” (ALEC) for submitting model legislation for legislators’ consideration? Why, you’d have thought democracy itself was at risk.
But there it is in plain black and white; the DFL majority is cribbing legislation from an extremist gun-grabber group that has among the worst records for truthfulness and veracity anywhere in politics – only the Ku Klux Klan and the “Joe Isuzu PAC” do worse – and, apparently (judging by the petulance and illiteracy of the DFL’s responses to the testimony against their gun grabs) without having read them themselves.
Pleased to meet you, can you guess my name?
Plenty of sympathy (and a $1 million reward) for the devil in Southern California.
Former Marine and LAPD officer Chris Dorner promised to wage “unconventional and asymmetrical warfare” against his former employer in his bizarre manifesto. Five days into Dorner’s declaration of war against the LAPD, starting with murdering the 28 year-old daughter of a police officer and her fiancé, it appears Dorner has made good on that threat as there has been little “conventional” in the reaction to his crimes.
If Dorner believed that gunning down two innocent people, and two other police officers, would result in greater scrutiny of the LAPD, it was a bloody gamble that’s paid off. In a matter of days, the LAPD has gone from dismissing Dorner’s account of the reasons behind his firing to re-opening the investigation. LA Police Chief Charlie Beck denied the move was an attempt to “appease” Dorner. It’s more likely an attempt to appease the public amid an ever-growing series of errors in the Dorner manhunt.
Who might have guessed that the LAPD would be Dorner’s biggest ally in his murderous attempt to move public opinion? Thus far, the LAPD has managed to shoot one older woman in the back, terrify her daughter, and shoot at a thin white man in a supposed case of mistaken identity with a large black man. Much was made in the media of Dorner’s military experience as a rationale for why authorities have been unable to find him in the resort community of Big Bear, where Dorner is said to be hiding. But there’s little rationale for a trigger-happy police force that seems to be playing right into Dorner’s hands.
And Dorner most certainly seems to have some sense of the media impact of his actions. Writing in his manifesto screed, Dorner claimed:
“The department has not changed since the Rampart and Rodney King days. It has gotten worse,” Dorner wrote. “I know I will be vilified by the LAPD and the media. Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name.”
Apparently part of the “necessary evil” was taunting Monica Quan’s father Randall with a phone call in which he said Quan “should have done a better job of protecting his daughter.” Don’t worry, Dorner didn’t “enjoy” that.
What Dorner might have had a harder time anticipating was a vocal minority insistent on turning him into a folk hero:
Supporters of Christopher Dorner, the former LA policeman turned “cop killer,” have shown up online, with tweets and fan pages on Facebook. Some call Dorner a “hero” for writing a nine-page manifesto alleged on racism and corruption within the LAPD.
Numerous supporters on Twitter are calling the alleged murderer a “Dark Knight.”One Facebook page calls him “the hero LA deserves, but not the one it needs right now … He’s a silent guardian, watchful protector against corruption, he’s our Dark Knight.”
There’s even a “I support Christopher Jordan Dorner” Facebook page with over 7,000 “likes.” The page’s creator is already promising “t-shirts, buttons, stickers + bumper stickers” because nothing says respectful, intellectual debate like mass marketing a psychopath. Hey, it worked for Che Guevara.
If Dorner really was the “whistleblower” he wants to define himself as, there were a myriad of ways for him to get his message out other than with a gun. But his entire narrative of the LAPD is at odds with perception of the department. After the disgrace of the Rampart scandal in the late 90s, where 70 officers were implicated in misconduct with a gang strike force, the LAPD has seen a surge in popularity. A 2009 poll put the LAPD at a nearly 80% approval rating.
Most of Dorner’s criticisms of the department aren’t exactly Serpico-level indictments, but rather tales of harassment and bureaucratic lethargy. Hardly grounds for a killing spree. Unless, of course, Dorner isn’t the “Dark Knight” wish fulfillment figure for some in Southern California but at heart just a deranged, vengeful man.
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