How predictable!

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill

I can't help but think that people like McCarthy have these bills already drawn up and waiting in a file cabinet for just the right tragedy to come along.

This blog has moved

This is the old blog and it is now located at http://valley-nra.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

Since I don't get the warm-and-fuzzies at the thought of Google having ultimate control over whether or not you should be allowed to read this blog, our real blog is now here. This blog will no longer be updated. I'm am more than happy, however, to let Blogspot act as an archive.

For those with similar concerns about "Big Google" and the potential for your blog to disappear down the memory hole, the new blog is a WordPress blog. WordPress is a php and MySQL based blog that's run on your site's host computer. I'm finding that most hosting services offer it as an option. (It's cheap for them to do so as WordPress, php, and MySQL are all open source programs that they can use for free and modify as they wish to souit their system requirements.) The files, including the database, are stored on the host where you can get at them; not tucked away on a Google server farm.

McDonald

Nothing new to report on McDonald. The media has their collective knickers in a twist over the defeat they expect to see handed to Chicago.

One thing to watch for, assuming that Mr. McDonald prevails, is to see which "side" on his side is painted as the "loser". Mr. Gura took what this commentator thinks is a risky approach to the case and, perhaps, watered down his gun rights case to make some other point. I'd hate to think that my gun rights were put at risk because Mr. Gura had some sort of conservative bee in his bonnet about the Privileges and Immunities clause. The path of least resistance for the Court is the Due Process route presented by the NRA. Should the Justices pick one view over the other, the Anti's will try to claim that as a defeat for one "side" or the other.

Will this blog go "dark"?

I just got a notice from Blogger.com informing me that they are discontinuing their ftp support. This has me concerned as I use that protocol to publish this blog. Or so I thought. I use a cool blogging tool for Firefox called ScribeFire. I went and looked at the settings for this blog and ScribeFire thinks that I'm using another protocol. In any event, the articles themselves live on this server, so none of the content here, sparse as it is, will be lost.

Debunking a rumor

From Paul Payne...

SUBJECT: SB-2099

SOURCE: 

http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/SB2099.shtml

QUESTION:
Is it true that . . .  Senate Bill SB-2099 will require owners of firearms to pay a $50 charge per gun and list each gun on their federal tax form?

ANSWER: The answer
is no.  This Internet rumor states that SB-2099 is legislation currently being considered by the Senate. The bill supposedly requires owners of firearms to list on their 1040 tax return all guns they own and then pay a $50 charge per firearm. There is no such legislation by this name in the 111th Congress.

The facts:

• The last bill given the number S. 2099 was in the 105th Congress. This bill dealt with federal sentencing guidelines for counterfeiting offenses.
  
• Legislation that the Senate is currently working on will be listed on the  Active Legislation page or can be searched for on Thomas. For more information about the legislative process or finding bills, please see the Legislation VRD page.
  

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=5098

Sonia Sotomayor on gun rights...

NRA-ILA: Sonia Sotomayor on gun rights

Also, the good folks at FreeRepublic.com are liveblogging the hearings. FReeper pabianice reports that Sotomayor has reaffirmed her position that the 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to the States.

[Sotomayor] Mentioned "hunting" and "target practice" as legitimate uses for a gun, as long as the state decides you can have one. Not one word on self-defense.

The Ninth Circuit, of all courts, disagrees with Sotomayor. in Nordyke v. King, the 9th concluded that the 2nd Amendment does indeed protect an individual liberty against infringement by the States.

We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty." Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.

(This represents a split between the 9th Circuit and Sotomayor's 2nd Circuit. Nordyke, if I remember correctly, has been appealed to the Supreme Court. Many analysts believe that the Court will take the case. Thus if Sotomayor is confirmed, she'll be asked to hear an appeal that coud overturn one of her opinions.)

Why do we "cling" to our guns?

So what is it that motivates us clingy gun owners? Why the obsession with guns? This clip from Iran (Be forewarned: This is extremely graphic and disturbing. Do not click the link if you are easily offended.) shows what happens when the government holds a monopoly on violence.

Across Iran, the people have been protesting an obviously fraudulent election. Government thugs, the Basij, have felt free to employ whatever violence they please to put down this growing insurrection. This includes firing on unarmed civilians, such as poor Neda. Reports say that she and her father weren't even involved in the protests, but were merely observing from some distance when she was shot by a sniper. Neda, whose name means "voice" in Farsi, was silenced by her own government.

There are those who will say that "this can never happen here". No, it can't. But why can't it happen here? It can't happen here because our government doesn't hold a monopoly on violence or the means by which one can do violence. More importantly, it knows this and has known it for over 200 years. No American leader would even think of suppressing protests the way that a foreign dictator would. The dictator knows that his subjects are unarmed and can be beaten down in whatever fashion pleases him. In the US, any politician aspiring to similar oppression knows from the start that we aren't unarmed subjects; we're armed citizens. He knows that against even a fraction of the nation's 100,000,000 gun owners, he doesn't stand a chance; thus he wouldn't even try.

Hence the obsession.

But this can change. Gun owners won a major victory in Heller, however that victory can be lost through apathy. If we allow our rights to slip away a little at a time, there may come a time when an American father will have to watch his 16-year old daughter die before his eyes; unable to defend her, fight back, or do anymore than wail in grief for his Neda.