Are We Winning?

Hard to tell sometimes as some of these fights seem to just go on and on. But as the bomber pilots used to say, "If you're catching flak, you must be over the target."

Here in CO we have one senator fighting a recall by putting out radio ads warning the folks in his district that petitioners may well be sex offenders or identity thieves. In Illinois they're having a legislative clusterf**k trying to pass a concealed carry law that will satisfy the supreme court without actually allowing anyone to carry a gun. If you don't live in Illinois, the efforts can be entertaining.

The latest effort is a mag ban that would probably make most if not all automatic pistols illegal. It's a pretty good bet that this wouldn't pas constitutional muster either, but it takes a while to get a case through the courts and in the meantime it can be modified to make the case against it moot without actually addressing the problem. The plaintiffs get to start over at their own expense of course.

Ill residents are encouraged to contact their legislators but with a caveat about the bills sponsor:

SPECIAL NOTICE: DO NOT call Senator Kotowski unless he is your Senator, and even then be very careful. Kotowski has a track record of having the State Police investigate and harass people that disagree with him.

He sounds like a real peach.

H/T to No Lawyers for this gem.

Tea Party - IRS Protest

I went by the Tea Party protest at the IRS building in Denver. Alas, I couldn't stay, but I got a usable picture. There were 50+ people out in front of the building with signs, a bullhorn and all that.

The zoom on the camera has stopped working or I'd have a couple more. For a protest held on a workday downtown where parking is scarcer than honest politicians, this wasn't bad.

The sidewalk had been divided down the middle to allow pedestrian passage, and there were at least 5 police cars in attendance so these must be dangerous folks.

Saw this billboard on the way back and couldn't resist:

Banking is probably the most regulated business in the world, so when the bankers lose respect for their masters, the end must surely be near.

The IRS scandal is playing out like "A Man For All Seasons" with the king lamenting "Is there no one who can rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and a couple of knights taking it upon themselves to do exactly that. In the end the king kept his crown although it didn't look good for the helpful knights.

Machiavelli covered the same situation when he described a noble sent by a victorious prince to shape the new subjects up by imposing draconian discipline and high taxes on them. After six months or so the Prince himself showed up for a goodwill visit and heard the complaints of his new subjects. To show what a nice fellow he was, he (privately) had his lackey's tongue cut out, denied wanting any of those bad things to happen, and then had him publicly chopped in half to the cheers and adulation of all present. This is how you move from "Evil Usurper" to "Respected Ruler" and incidentally get rid of a surplus lackey.

President Obama probably didn't specifically order anyone to actually do anything, but public speeches about what ought to be done coupled with senatorial letters suggesting what ought to be done can certainly get the message across. Sarah Hall Ingram certainly got the message. She also got a big promotion, but if the deal goes sour, she'll go under the bus with the rest.

Update: Got wrong name of IRS official. Corrected and link fixed. I blame Global Warming.

Immigration Law Pretty Much Optional

The advantage to having a bipartisan Gang of Eight write your immigration bill is that you can claim it was bipartisan. The disadvantage is that writing it takes so long that details get leaked out before the thing is safely passed.

Pretty much the whole bill, while calling for things like deportations and building border fences and whatnot, is at the option of the secretary of Homeland Security to do or not do as she sees fit.

The whole bill is just another "Look what we did instead of something" item.

Read the whole thing at NRO.

QOTD - With Easter Egg

Found  at Townhall, via writer John Hawkins:

When you start to conclude that it's okay for your side to ignore the law, break the rules and defeat your political enemies by any means necessary*, you're veering into dangerous territory. It's dangerous because a republic can't function over the long haul when one side of the political debate is treated as above the law. Either the law applies equally to both sides of the political debate or good people will begin to feel that they have no choice other than to operate outside the law in order to get justice.

* emphasis mine, this bit is from Saul Alinsky, whose advice, it has been noted, works both ways.

Win Glock Stuff

Go here and read the rules. Easiest path to register is a Like on FB. Since I'm not on FB, this is one of the other ways to get in.

Good News

For a change.

Dons Gun Show notes that ammo is reappearing and gun prices are returning to something near normal.

Ammo is back in case lots at the show, with even the centerfire scarcity leader, 9mm Parabellum, readily available at 35 to 40 cents a round and small pistol primers available for $35-40 per thousand. From Commie calibers to the most popular America center-fire rifle and pistol calibers, ammo is back at or only slightly above prices prevailing before the Democrat assault on gun rights.

There was still no .22LR generally available except secondary vendors selling their personal stocks at about $65 for a brick of 500.

$65/500 is still out of the breathable atmosphere, but you have to admit it's an improvement ober the $85/550 we saw not that long ago. Supply is finally catching up with demand and prices should be back near normal in a couple months.

Except in Cali where they're working on 2 bills that would double the price on .22 ammo. A 10% tax plus a $.05/round tariff on ammo would make smuggling some ammo in from out  of state a profitable business. Imagine a $20 brick of 550, plus the 7% local sales tax = $1.40, plus 10% new special tax = $2.00, plus $.05/round = $27.50 for a total of $30.90 in taxes alone. The brick would run $50.90.

Modern math problem. Give this to your kids:

Joe Tofu would like to buy a brick of .22 to shoot in his plinker. He lives in San Jose, 200 miles from the nearest reasonably priced ammo ($22.00/brick, Reno, NV). If his Prius gets 35 mpg, gas costs $4.00/gal, and he can sell bricks to his friends at $35/ea, how many does he need to buy to cover his costs for the trip? Don't forget he plans to keep one for himself.

Extra credit: If possession of more than 1000 rounds of any ammo at all is considered terrorism in Cali, how many consecutive life terms will Joe serve if he is pulled over for speeding on his way back? Assume 1 per 1000 rounds.

Mistaken Identity

Fox News reports:

Denver has a program that enlists taxi drivers to report suspicious activities.

The Tanner Gun Show is a pretty good sized monthly event held at the Merchandise Mart, just outside the Denver city limits.

A cabbie dropped a fare off at the show, who turned out to be an executive with an unnamed Italian firearms company who was carrying seven shotguns.

Seeing the mans "arsenal" the cabbie reported having dropped off a terrorist to the Adams county Sheriff. The executive's lawyer straightened things out fairly quickly although the executive was not the least bit amused.
------------------------------------
In all fairness however, back in the cabbies hometown of Peshwar, someone with seven guns may well be a terrorist.

 O.K. the cabbies home town was not suggested. Still, the Tanner features large numbers of people standing on the sidewalk with all manner of firearms hanging off of their persons much like the normal crowd at an Afghan arms bazaar.

Colorado Gun Laws

Under the 15-round limit law, smaller magazines with removal base plates are also outlawed — a measure that affects most handguns and many rifles, Kopel said of the move to limit gun ownership.

I've seen different interpretations of this ranging from "pay no attention to it"  to yes, any magazine with a removable floor plate is effectively banned.

I suppose it will be like most laws passed here, interpretation will be left to the cops judgement and/or orders from higher ups.

The city and County of Denver has always taken the most draconian interpretation of all legislation, and if it can't be over-interpreted, they write their own municipal statutes to fill in any perceived gaps. If you want a semiauto pistol, you'll have to buy it outside of Denver if you want any magazines at all to go with it.

Either that, or this law, like most of the others, will be widely ignored. 

There is a lawsuit started to overturn this, but getting anything through the courts typically takes a long time.

More Bad News

Not gun related this time, but still...

While out cruising down the Platte and up the Highline Canal on my bicycle, I'm noticing an unusually large number of dead trees. It seems that the drought is killing off the weaker ones and the late Spring isn't helping.

I've lost a peach tree, a walnut, and several shrubs and the remaining trees are very slow budding out. The late snowfall and freeze has stopped all flowering on the plums, apple, and remaining peach, so no fruit this year. The squirrels will be eating the bark off the trees to stay alive, so if I don't thin that herd, I'll lose the rest of the foliage weather we get any rain or not.

Cold and Dry: Global Tundra.

Bad Year

On top of the New York gun laws we got in the first quarter, now the gun club I belong to has been shut down. Some 1200 people are now looking for another place to shoot. There are a few in the National forests and on the National Grasslands, but none very convenient to the Denver area.

Cherry Creek State Park has a range with up to 100 yards available which I'm told if normally quite busy.

The next nearest ranges are about 1-1/2 hours drive from where I live, and have wait lists up to 3 years to get in. 

In the meantime I'm trying to find a place to shoot the e-postal match and dial in the .22. The problem being that the indoor ranges don't like you to use copier paper targets. First because they like to sell their own targets, but second because the debris from copier paper gunks up their air filters more rapidly than the soft brown stuff. I may have to shoot this one in my back yard with a pellet gun.

As bad as losing the range is losing the social group that went with it. That will be impossible to replace.

How The Game Is Played

When it is the privilege of the other side to make the rules, it is incumbent on the underdogs to understand those rules and use them to the most favorable extent possible. When it becomes apparent that your Tea Party group is going to be bogged down in IRS red tape with the chilling threats of even more IRS attention, the solution is to adopt the protective coloration of the other side:

In 2011 Conservative watchdog group Media Trackers filed with the IRS to achieve nonprofit status. The application got stuck in Obama-induced IRS limbo. In 2012 the same group changed its name and filed again with the IRS as “Greenhouse Solutions.” They were granted nonprofit status in 3 weeks.

I especially like the use of the word 'greenhouse' as it distracts the government drones at the Ministry of Truth from the actual orientation of the group, and carries the implication that your groups objectives can be more effectively carried out beneath a protective shelter.

Perhaps if the Tea Party organizations began to adopt the Liberty tree as logo and called themselves the Green Tree Party, "Our motto: Watering the Tree", they could get tax-free status in no time at all and vote the bastards out before they caught on.

Grammar Test

The fine points of English grammar can sometimes be confusing. That said, here's a grammar test from the BBC, the worlds greatest authority on energy, economics, social issues, and of course, English grammar.

I got 7/10, which for an engineer has to be fairly good. Any higher and I'd be looking for work as a professional pundit, librarian, or green energy expert.

Something In The Water?

BELCHERTOWN (CBS) – Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir.

State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates.

-------------
One of the college courses I took was a civil engineering course in water treatment. We visited the local reservoir and treatment plant. During business hours. Accompanied by a professor. With an appointment with the plant manager.

I have heard it suggested that there must be something in the water in Massachusetts, but no one ever suggested who it was who might be putting it there. Now maybe we know?

Obama Accepts Limbaugh Summit Offer

President Obama today has announced that he will accept Rush Limbaugh's offer of an economic summit, and has set most of the details for the historic meeting. The summit will take place at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The president has asked Mr. Limbaugh to appear there as soon as possible, assuring him that the military will provide him with lodging "fit for a Sheikh" upon his arrival.

Mr. Obama has also said that due to a very busy schedule  he has had lately including pre-arranged tee times, he cannot guarantee an exact date or time for his own arrival, but will be there to begin the summit as soon as he possibly can.

When asked, press secretary Jay Carney suggested that the soonest the president had any time slots available would be "late January, 2017".

Several prominent Republicans have applauded the president's offer stating that they would do their best to expedite the presidents arrival at the Guantanamo facility at the earliest possible date.

Colorado Law - State-of-the-State

Went to the Republican post-mortem today and heard what a bunch of poopy-heads the Dems are from the minority leaders of both houses. They thought they had given the people good ideas and good candidates in the last election but if they were all that good how come their titles include the word "minority"? The question of "what are you going to do about it?" came up. I didn't hear any definitive answer.

Both of them think the all-mail-in vote fraud bill is a complete travesty, which tells me that they expect to be minority leaders into the foreseeable future unless the electorate somehow finds itself hugely betrayed and votes against the Dems at levels great enough to offset the expected fraud.

There may be hope. The Dems voted in obligations without including funding in a couple of cases amounting to some $1Bn which will need to be found pretty soon. The marijuana regulation bill includes a call for taxation which the Republicans tried to keep low. The Dems set it up to start at around 30% combined to start with a proviso to allow it to grow to about 40% as quickly as localities can set their own rates. I bet the pot-heads thought the price would go down now that the new cartel was dealing the stuff. The tax on pot is subject to voter approval and it's unlikely to actually pass, so there will be no funding for regulation except from the general fund, which means that something will need to be cut.

Renewable energy will get a boost as the rural folk will be required to get some 25% of their juice from renewables. The urban districts somehow were exempted. Vestas, a maker of gigantic windmills, is losing $200M/quarter and needs the subsidy to keep the donations to the Dems coming.

By 2014 Obamacare will be in full cry and we'll see if the gratitude of people who pay no taxes at getting free insurance is greater than the anger of people who pay taxes at seeing their insurance rates quadruple.

There was also an education bill that called for a big increase in education spending. To what purpose was not specified. Here is a graphic that suggests that after about $6000/student/year, additional monies don't buy improved test scores

Colorado spends about $9300/student/year on K-12 public education. Note how much improvement that gets us on scores.

In secondary education, the Dems voted to give every person in the world who could show up at our door, in-state tuition at Colorado colleges and universities. Unless of course you happen to be from one of the other 49 American states. Just walk across the border and show proof you're here illegally. Don't forget to register to vote when you get your drivers license.

In Douglas County, the GOP has been pretty much having its way with the Dems and enjoys huge popular support. The leadership there recently tried to become state leader for the GOP but was told by the party membership from the more urban counties that they were not needed at the state level. The more urban counties were the ones that made Colorado such a solidly blue state in the last election, so the leadership there must know what they're talking about. That or the State GOP chairman is in fact a Democrat mole.