Electronic Lycanthroplasty

So, yea, I was hoping to break my self-imposed political hibernation a day early and head up to Richmond for the VCDL Lobby Day. But once again, I was stuck at work, and there’s no real way to call in “sick” in my position. It almost makes me envy the loser neo-hippies who can wander off to protest whatever silly thing is annoying them at the drop of a hat.

Almost.

It will be nice if the assembly passes the preemption upgrade and repeals the restaurant carry ban. Especially since I work in one of the cities which prompted the need for HB 1655, and basically every eating establishment surrounding the job sells alcohol. But, then, I suppose I should be telling my delegate this right now instead of posting it on the internets.

Anyhow, Change is coming tomorrow, so I’m off to hide in a hole again until the innaugural fluff storm passes.

Hmm, this WordPress thing has lots of shiny features which make life easier (like having everything in the database which I was always too lazy to code..), but the theme system is a pain in the ass. Granted, it’s a lot easier than, say, the old IPB we use at GTAF. But, damn, does it really need so many templates? Is there a stripped template somewhere which is simpler than the “classic” theme that I just didn’t notice?

Though it would probably help to RTFM. Oh well. It kinda looks right-ish now anyway. Hopefully everything else will be done by the time Congress is back in session. I’ve mostly been ignoring politics since the election so my brain has a chance to recharge. Something tells me we won’t be getting much sleep for the next two years. If only because we’re too busy laughing at what looks like it will be an epic, slow-motion train wreck of Democratic special interests eating each other. 😛

Looks like I finally got my own server. Maintaining the code on my old blog was getting boring too, so I decided to scrap it and just install WordPress. Comments and categories got lost along the way since the default RSS importer wouldn’t play along, but hopefully they’ll be easy to convert later. That will come after redoing the theme though.

Federal court upholds machine gun ban because they’re not in “common use.” They’re not in “common use” because the ban, and the cumbersome registration process before that, have artificially limited the supply.

So, I guess this means Congress can simply ban any and every firearm designed or manufactured after today’s date because things which don’t exist obviously aren’t in “common use” yet?

And does this apply to other individual rights? Can Congress ban future, high tech publishing devices because they’re not in “common use” yet? Can they quarter troops in new homes which aren’t in “common use” yet? Pass a law authorizing searches and surveillance of all new communication devices which aren’t in “common use” yet? Or, well, you get the picture..

But, yea, it’s a good thing the Heller case didn’t happen 200 years ago. Had lower courts used Scalia’s jumbled dicta like this then, the Second Amendment would have been reduced to a right to keep and bear muskets.

Prags v. 3 Percenters, round eleventy bazillion.

I don’t get why some people feel this must be an either/or situation. I write letters to representatives and bureaucrats, am in the NRA, donated more than I could afford at the time to help pay for Heller briefs, etc.. like a good “prag.” If, however, the enemy redraws the line behind us, I will peacefully refuse to comply. Up until they initiate force against us..

Just as Mr. Vanderboegh has emphasized with his “No Fort Sumters” guideline.

If we ever get to the point where mass confiscations– or merely mass arrests for owning previously legal arms — begin to happen, public support will be the least of our worries. Though it seems unlikely to me that the general public would have the stomach for the government killing, say, a million of us. Or even a thousand for that matter. Yes, we may scare the proverbial white people now, but when the anti-gunners’ collective mask comes off and the boot steps on our necks, public support/sympathy will almost surely grow.

If only because some of them begin to realize they might be next.

But, yea, being that I do “pragmatic” things, I obviously don’t fault the “prags” for doing them too. It just puzzles me when they spend so much energy criticizing their own side for being too scary or whatever (especially when they attribute threats of starting a war to people only promoting defensive action). I don’t think anyone is saying political action is cowardly in and of itself. Just that it’s a bit low to throw others under the bus for daring to speak of what may happen if political action fails.

The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting, sport, or even just stopping burglars. It’s about armed resistance to tyranny. If we keep verbally ceding that ground to the enemy, we will lose the argument. Sorta like how we almost lost the self defense card before the (re)birth of the modern shall-issue CCW and castle doctrine wave.

Besides, seeing as a few Federal judges have mentioned the whole armed resistance thing in opinions and dissents, it’s a bit late now to go trying to shove the cat back into the bag held by the elephant in the middle of the room. 😉

Anyhow, like I said a few months ago, the Brady types are going to use anything we say or do (or don’t) out of context to fear monger, so there’s no point fighting amongst ourselves.

Via The Liberty Sphere comes this piece about the “fairness doctrine” by my old pal Jack Thompson. It’s actually a pretty good article detailing how the incoming administration might hide “fairness doctrine” flavored censorship behind buzzwords like “localism” and “diversity.” That said, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the opening sentence.

Get ready for an unprecedented government assault upon the First Amendment.

This, coming from Jack Thompson? The man who considered it a “badge of honor” to be called Censor of the Year back in ’92? The man who has spent the last nine years trying to have games like America’s Army, Halo, and GTA censored/banned because they somehow “train” people to use guns? But now he decides to care about the First Amendment after attempting to sell Hillary and friends the rope to hang us with?

Words fail me.

But I guess Obama putting the Clintons back in charge of the White House may have been something of a wake-up call for him. Should be interesting to see how he handles fighting alongside us “libertarian thugs” instead of against us. Now that would be Change You Can Believe In When You See It™!

I went to vote around 11am today, and only had to wait in line inside the building for like an hour. Seemed like a long time until reading about some of the lines in other districts nearby. Some of which were outside in the rain. Sucks to be them.

But, yea, voting for John McCampaignFinanceReform made me feel kinda.. dirty, so I headed down to the fun shop after lunch and picked up some more zombie repellent to cheer me up. Traffic on the way there was bad due to some car being flipped over. In the middle of a rather straight street, and coincidentally right in front of another polling place. Weird..

Sadly, they were out of PMAGs and the selection of 7.62 was limited, so I didn’t get much. But the visit to the store was amusing by itself. Guy who was there before me had about a dozen AR mags on the counter. I just had the three for the Kalashnicopy and three for the AR. Then a third guy walked in, laughed, and asked jokingly why we were both wearing “I voted” stickers and shopping for thirty round mags. He had a sticker too, and was apparently there looking for a new EBR.

An now for the fun part of election day: waiting for poll results.

Meh. I’m not happy at all with the choices facing us in the election tomorrow. John McCain has a quite a nasty statist streak in him, but Barack Obama is a statist through and through.

Originally I was planning on voting Libertarian this year, but Bob Barr’s record isn’t much better than McCain’s, and Virginia is apparently a swing State this year. Now, to be perfectly honest, this might not bother me so much if we were going into this with a clear, Republican majority in Congress on the other side of tomorrow. Yea, Obama could still make quite a mess with just one branch, but partisan gridlock would have limited the damage he could do.

With the Democrats expected to have a substantial majority in Congress, however, there’s only one conclusion to draw.

Obama must be stopped. Even if it means voting for John McGunShowLoophole.

The Senator has lots of good intentions, to be sure. And, hell, I’d even go so far as saying some of his ideas sound nice in theory. The problem is, though, they won’t work on paper; namely the Constitution. Even if all his plans could somehow work in practice, creating more government powers not delegated by the Constitution only serves to undermine the rule of law.

And regardless of whether the results might feel good in the short term, the expansion of government power which Obama seeks will ultimately lead to tyranny. Whether or not he’s the one to crush liberty once and for all, his plans would set the stage for the final act.

Then of course there’s the fact his party has even grander plans than he does. Plans which, if passed in Congress, he would almost certainly sign into law..

Again, McCain was never my first choice, but at the very least he would slow the growth of the Federal Leviathan. And on the bright side, McCain might be able to appoint a few appellate judges and a Supreme Court Justice or two who could push back. Even if it’s only a few inches, it would give us some chance to regroup.

Like most people, I enjoy zombie movies, zombie games, and, well, the horror genre in general. Even the bad ones. But zombie films are my favorite. And like most people who like zombie movies, I’ve given a lot of thought about what to do in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

Lots of people will, of course, snicker at the absurdity of such an idea. But the way I look at it, if you’re prepared for zombies, you’re prepared for just about anything. Given the way the economy and stuff is going now, being prepared for anything is probably a good idea..

So, yea, if you ask a dozen random people what they would do when faced with an army of the shambling undead, at least two or three of them will tell you the gun store will be their first stop. Either for looting or for shopping. The problem here, for the uninitiated, is threefold.

1. Gun shops usually have *drumroll* guns. Which means they will be able to shoot any unarmed people who try to loot the place. Especially in free States or countries where the employees can open carry a pistol.
2. Even if you intend to buy, rather than loot, chances are the employees will have already either departed with all the goodies, or they will have fortified the shop.
3. All the other people who thought it was a good idea to do some last minute shopping will either beat you there or arrive at around the same time. At best, this just means the store will have sold out already. At worst, you will have to compete with a panicked group of the living and the undead.

Unless you’re the absolute first person to know of the zombies (or any other catastrophe), someone at the gun shop will almost certainly be the second to find out after the first person goes there to stock up. Thus placing all three of the above points into play. This, in turn, brings us to my first rule of surviving a zombie apocalypse:

Have guns and ammo on hand before a zombie apocalypse.

Just thought I’d share that..

After being stuck working pretty much every day for what seems like forever, I finally got a chance to go to the range today. To make things even more interesting, they’ve got a new rental toy behind the counter: a KRISS Vector SBR/SO. Being a sucker for plastic space guns, I just had to try the thing out once my supply of 9mm ammo was depleted.

One box of .45ACP (which is always like twice as expensive at a range..), a rental fee, and a few minutes of loading later, I released the bolt, flicked off the saftey, pressed the trigger, and.. nothing happened. Not even a click. The trigger just kind of went mushy.

So, yea, I cleared it and summoned the range master to figure out WTF was going on. Given how weird the thing is, maybe it was just a simple user error on my part? Nope. No such luck. Upon taking it back to the counter and stripping it, the range guy found that a post in the receiver which the trigger spring attaches to had apparently broken off the last time someone rented it.

I dunno how old it is since they might have bought it used or had it at their other range on my previous trips. But even so, it’s not encouraging that a vital piece would just break off like that from normal use at an indoor range. Especially since it doesn’t seem like it would get a whole lot of attention with such short lanes.

Oh well. At least it wasn’t a total loss. I got a card for a free rental out of the deal and ended up feeding the expensive box of .45 through one of their 1911s too. Which reminds me I really need to buy a 1911 one of these days.

There’s probably some irony in there somewhere..