Guns And Pot And Confiscations

A fellow came by our table at the gun show today asking about recommendations for a lawyer. It seems that his home in unincorporated Jefferson County was raided by officers of the Denver police department who searched his house and confiscated all the guns there, some of which belonged to his wife. The explanation he was given was that since he has a "red card" for medical marijuana, his second amendment rights are forfeit.

There is an ongoing problem with Colorado's experiment legalizing MJ in that the form 4473 asks if the applicant is a user of illegal drugs. While MJ is legal at the state level, the feds still consider it to be an illegal drug so answering the question  in the negative would be construed by the feds as a false answer. Answering in the positive would of course result in a rejection for purchase of a firearm.

As he explained it the Denver cops took all the guns in the house including his wife's guns although she does not use medical MJ, and some guns which he has had since before the introduction of background checks. Some months have passed, and no charges have been filed but the DPD refuses to return the guns.

We recommended him to a first rate attorney who even if they can't afford him will send them to someone more economical who can competently assist them.

I'll see if I can get any more information on this.

Gun Rights - Much Needed Legislation

Rep. Patrick Meehan  (R-PA) Rep. Katherine Clark  (D-MA) recently introduced the Interstate Swatting Hoax Act.

Found the reference here with highlights  

H.R. 1041.

False communications with the intent to cause an emergency response.

(a)

Criminal violation

Whoever, with the intent to cause an emergency response by any law enforcement agency, in the absence of circumstances requiring such a response, uses a telecommunications system, the mails, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce to knowingly transmit false or misleading information indicating that conduct has taken, is taking, or will take place that may reasonably be believed to constitute a violation of any State or Federal criminal law, or endanger public health or safety, shall—

(1)

if an emergency response results, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both;

(2)

if serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365) results, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both;

(3)

if death results, be fined under this title or imprisoned for any number of years or for life, or both; and

(4)

in any other case, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.

It gets better. RTWT for the details and imagine an anti-gunner being frog-marched out of the Wal Mart where they hoped the police would gun down one of their enemies for them.

This sort of approach is over due and badly needed. We need to explain* to the grabbers that murder-by-proxy is a non-trivial offense against everyone.

The proposed piece here is Federal legislation which means it won't get passed and certainly won't get signed. This being an election year, we should all cut and paste the summary of the bill and send it to our state and local politicians for possible offering at that level.

*O.K. for these folks explaining involves a 2x4 applied to the side of the head, but the proposed legislation should work nearly as well.

Debate Summary

Trump was right.

Attention Song Writers

Here's everything you need except the melody.

All the critical elements for a real heart breaker here.

Festivities

The 25th was the birthday of Robert Burns, so off we went to celebrate with traditional Scottish fare:

Haggis and tattie. That's a table serving, not the main course. You take a pie wedge and see if your table mates want the rest. If they're not quick about it, you get another. The rest of the course includes Scotch which is brought in with a piper and served to the leaders of the fest in a two-handed cup which is fortunately not completely full. The drill is that you drink your dram from the cup then signify that you've downed it by turning the cup upside down over your head so it's drink it or wear it.

No Scotch was wasted in the ceremony. The piper on the right had to suffer the indignity of someone over 21 filling in for her. There were several volunteers.

Toasts were made and poetry read. The toast to the president was quite brief which avoided any big embarrassments and frankly I still think mine would have been more warmly greeted, but oh well.

For more Scottish poetry try The Haggis of Private McPhee.

FWIW, not only was there leftover Haggis, but I got a nice chunk of it. Re heated with hash brown potatoes and topped with an egg over easy it makes a fine breakfast.

Obama Inches Away From Hillary

She's not under the bus yet, but the bus seems to be heading her way and O'Bungler at least seems to see it coming and is slowly inching out of the traffic lane.

It means that she can govern and she can start here, [on] day one, more experienced than any non-vice president*(1) has ever been who aspires to this office. Her strengths, in terms of the ability to debate, the ability to, I think, project genuine concern in smaller groups*(2) and to interact with people, where folks realize she’s really warm and funny and engaging—

I'm thinking that the word is getting out that the case against her is good enough that having Loretta Lynch simply ignore it isn't going to work. I would also not be terribly surprised to hear about a White House meeting involving Mike Bloomberg to discuss "something".

*1: Take a hint Joe.
*2: Small groups. The people she can talk to in the adjacent cells.

Gasoline At $149/gallon

Not at the corner gas station where you have the option of going somewhere else, but at the military motor pool where gas is supplied by people with political connections.

One of the companies that got a lucrative biofuel contract from the military was the San Francisco–based Solazyme Inc. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2009, Solazyme got a $223,000 contract for 1,500 gallons of algae-based motor fuel. That works out to $149 per gallon.

I suppose the good news is that this fuel didn't take anything from the national food supply. Still seems a bit pricey.

RTWT: This wasn't even the worst of it.

Even Worse?

It now appears that those classified e-mails on Hills server were put there by her aide, Huma who passed them on to the unsecured computer by copying them from ultra-secure State department computers and pasting them to e-mails sent by unsecured computers which then arrived on Hills machine without the SOOPER-SEKRIT labels.

If an enemy agent wanted the information to fall into other hands without actually handing the stuff off herself, what better way than to move the info to an unsecured site. Of course that would mean that everyone from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Norks got a copy, but so what. Finally some real transparency from the O'Bungler administration.

Of course this further incriminated Hill as keeping classified info on a private and unsecured computer, but additionally it makes her aide, Huma Abedin look an awful lot like an active enemy agent.

Humas connections to the Muslim Brotherhood are well enough known and should have disqualified her from a sensitive job like Hills handler. I wonder if it's enough to make Hill complicit in an espionage action?

Enjoy The Day

 

 

 You know who you are.

Wishful Thinking

In the original story the piper got them all to jump in the water and drown.
Found at Theo Spark.

Keeping Firearms Out Of The Wrong Hands

The Feds are noting s spike in firearm thefts resulting from armed robberies in Denver. A total of 56 were stolen in 2014, but last year the ATF says that number nearly tripled. This year we're off to a flying start with 3 pawn shop robberies.

Not to worry. Colorado passed a universal Background Check law back in 2013 which the Dems assured us would prevent any of these guns being transferred illegally.

Welcoming Immigrants - Who Are Willing To Assimilate

Denmark has figured out how to subtly suggest to potential new ''Syrian" immigrants that they are not in a sharia-compliant country any more. The discreed hints are dropped at any place that serves food to the public by requiring that at least one pork-derived item be included on the menu.

When in Rome, as they say, eat spaghetti. When in Denmark, you don't have to eat Danish ham, but it's going to be on the menu and in the kitchen.

Multiculturalism should work both ways. Instead of demanding that a restaurant remove its outdoor sign touting its bacon-enhanced foods, the complainant should be reminded that they are not in East Islamowhackostan any more.

QOTD - Economics

OK so Trump is an economic ignoramus. It seems he's not alone and that knowing little on the topic is no impediment to great wealth. Check this offering from George Soros:

“Quantitative easing has worked. It has saved the world from deflation and a Great Depression,” Soros said. And regions like Europe need another dose. “What you have to do is just print money.”

Scroll down a bit an you will see what exactly printing money indiscriminately actually does. 

The Third Rail in Iowa

In spite of the fact that 3-rail electric trains aren't popular outside of New York, everyone understands that there are certain issues that one simply dies not bring up in an election year. This myth is pushed hard by the left to keep the right from pointing out some of their greatest failings. Social Security for example is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme but if anyone suggests this they are instantly denounced as wanting to "toss grandma (who votes Democratic) out on the streets". The Republicans (stupid party) assume that anyone over the age of 62 is too dumb to understand simple economics, and let the cancer grow.

This year in Iowa Cruz has taken a position against Big Alcohol and Trump has waded in on the side of ADM, denouncing Cruz as being in the pocket of Big Oil. So far the folks in Iowa, which boasts one of the best school systems in the country, are favoring Cruz, apparently recognizing that burning all that corn lowers their fuel economy, increases the carbon footprint and tax bill, speeds up the deterioration of their vehicles, and raises the price of food. Even if you get paid well for selling that snake oil, the increased costs elsewhere more than offset the income.

Running a farm is no different from running any other business and if you don't understand the economics of business, you won't be running it for long. Cruz has grabbed the third rail of taxpayer subsidized corn alcohol and has discovered that there is little or no voltage in it as he currently leads Trump in the Iowa polls. I find this encouraging as the more we learn about Trump, the more apparent is becomes that as popular as he is, the man is an economic ignoramus. The world economy is in bad enough shape already and we don't need a trade war right now.

The finance wonks currently meeting in Davos seem to agree with most of them seeing President Trump as no improvement over O'Bungler.

“The globe needs the U.S. to be strong,” she said. “The U.S. is still the horse that’s pulling the cart, and more so now with the capital outflows from emerging markets.”

 With the rest of the world being run by socialists of one stripe or another, that's an accurate picture, made complete by visualizing the cart as being full of the economically dead or dying ("I'm not dead yet!") viz. the Bring out your dead scene from Monty Python.

The future Of Transportation - Elio

And it's looking like the fed.gov will kill the Elio before it gets to production. Seems the feds are moving toward regulating some "car-like" 3-wheelers as cars with all that that implies.

Paul Elio has hopes that his design will be exempt even if the Polaris Scorpion magically becomes a car. I've got my doubts as I remember the ultralight airplane beginnings with flyable and reasonably safe designs at fairly reasonable prices. Then the FAA stepped in and now an ultralight costs close to what a production aircraft does. Has nearly all the features too except for severely limited fuel capacity and speed limits.

You have to get to full production before the regulators can get the first volume of regulations out or you won't get to production at all. Regulatory agencies are controlled by the industries they regulate and exist primarily to keep competitors out.

Updated to fix wonky links.