More Illinois counties reject Chicago-style 'gun control'

Lots of stuff has been going down while my computer problems raged around me. Even now, I'll probably be blogging lightly for the next few days, while I catch up with a lot of other stuff. Anyway, figured I'd celebrate my return to the cyber-world with something I last covered here. Here's the good news: Adams, Pope, and Wayne Counties have joined the other 12 in passing resolutions condemning the Chicago area legislators' relentless attacks on the Second Amendment. That makes fifteen counties that have passed such a resolution.

Here's a short article about the Adams County resolution.

UPDATE: By the way, speaking of Adams County, I should probably mention that the mayor of Quincy, Illinois (county seat of Adams County), is Mayor John A. Spring, one of six Illinois mayors who are part of Bloomberg's Coalition of Nanny-State Mayors (or whatever they call themselves)--I would love to hear his reaction to the new county resolution.

Monroe and Piatt Counties have added this type of resolution to their agendas, and are expected to vote soon. The current map thus looks like this:

(Click to enlarge)

Even better, way up in Kendall County (Chicago 'burbs, basically), Oswego Township has passed a similar resolution on the township level. Township by township--this is real grassroots, folks, and deep in the belly of the civilian disarmament beast.

Ready to be surrounded by a sea of green, Cook County?

E-meltdown

Sorry to just fade away altogether-had some kind of technical crisis with my network, and the internet connection thereof. Anyway, it's (hopefully) resolved now, and I'll be back to barking at the civilian disarmament lobbyists tomorrow.

Giuliani now strong supporter of Second Amendment (and I'm the Easter Bunny)

What a load off my mind--I just read that Rudy Giuliani, presently the Republican front-runner for president, has a healthy reverence for the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. Hmm--why can't I shake some niggling doubts, though?

Could it have something to do with the fact that the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior? Could it be related to the fact that during his administration, New York City sued not only gun manufacturers, but holster manufacturers, as well? Could it have something to do with this (from the first link):

. . . who as mayor endorsed the Brady gun bill and praised former Democratic President Bill Clinton's work on gun control.

But now (at least while he's trying to talk Southerners into supporting him for the Republican presidential nomination), he sings a different tune.

Giuliani, on a Dixie swing that includes Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, assured the crowd here that his strict interpretation of the Constitution demands that he support the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

"What your friends are probably concerned about is my history as mayor of New York City, because I enforced the gun laws in New York very aggressively," Giuliani said. "I did it because I had a city [where] crime was way out of control. It was destroying the fabric of our society."

So, because of crime (committed, obviously, by criminals), he enforced laws--laws that he now says he would not support, because of the Constitution (was the Constitution suspended during his mayoral term?)--that don't affect criminals (because laws are only obeyed by the law-abiding). If I were trying to make that argument, I guess I would be sweating, too.

Giuliani has maintained he hasn't changed his position. He said yesterday gun laws in his administration wouldn't be much different than they are now.

Not "much different than they are now," eh? Not exactly a ringing endorsement of a shall not be infringed take on the right to keep and bear arms.

Sullivan [the college student who asked Giuliani if he planned to take away our guns] said he was satisfied with Giuliani's response: "I don't want felons to have the guns, and as long as he's a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, I can support him," he said.

Although Sullivan arrived with an Ann Coulter book in hand and a liking for still-undeclared candidate Fred Thompson, the actor and former Tennessee senator, "I'm more leaning toward Rudy now," he said.

Kid, if that is enough to satisfy you, I would like to offer you a great deal on a pair of breeding mules.

Tempest in a Tampa teapot

This "article" doesn't even get past the title ("Assault rifles: Dangerous , deadly and on our streets") without serious accuracy problems--assault rifles, which have a fully automatic fire capability, have been extremely heavily regulated for many decades. I assume the Tammie Fields (the author) meant "assault weapons"--a term made up by the Victim Producing Center's Josh Sugarmann--made up specifically to capitalize on the ignorance of people like Tammie, and their propensity for confusing semi-automatic firearms with fully automatic ones.

She starts with a reference to the famous North Hollywood Bank shootout of 1997.

Tampa – Who can forget the fierce shootout between police and two heavily armed men decked out in protective armor? It wasn't a movie the nation was watching. It was real back in February of 1997 in North Hollywood, California.

Police closed in on the suspects after they robbed a bank. It would become the most violent shootout in police history revealing that the bad guys are arming themselves most times better than police.

"Most times?" How does one incident reveal anything about what happens "most times"? For that matter, does the fact that she had to go ten years in the past to find her illustrative case not indicate that it was an extremely unusual event?

Next, she does her best to tie that bit of history in with current events.

Then fast forward to this week in Tampa. Local police say Antwan Gould and Derrick Howie, convicted felons, not only sold undercover officers cocaine at the Brittany Apartment complex on Dale Mabry but when officers arrested the two they found a high powered assault rifle in the back seat of their car.

The trouble is that the "high powered assault rifle" was an SKS--neither "high powered" (the 7.62x39mm round is a good deal less powerful than popular deer hunting calibers like the .30-06, .270 Winchester, etc.), nor an "assault rifle" (it has no fully automatic fire capability--in fact, by most definitions of "assault weapon," it is not even one of those).

Perhaps the police officers will clear up Tammie's confusion . . . nope:

According to detectives Gould and Howie were armed with an SKS assault rifle. It was fully loaded with enough power to send a bullet slicing through a car door according to the undercover officer. "It's a military round. So chances are the vest we wear on a day to day basis would not have helped us a whole lot with that round."

Enough power to send a bullet through sheet metal? The horror! Also, the fact that it's a "military round" has nothing to do with the inability of soft body armor (the kind worn by most police officers--and even that sounds kind of unlikely for undercover officers) to stop it--that would be the case with just about any centerfire rifle round.

Tammie should stop worrying about "assault rifles" on Tampa's streets, and start worrying about her lack of knowledge of the subjects she covers.

Gun manufacturer helps the 'Only Ones' be the 'Only Ones'

Not knowing much about long-range tactical rifles ("sniper rifles," as the media herbivores would call them), I was unaware that CheyTac (Cheyenne Tactical) offers one grade of their Intervention M-200 rifle for military and law enforcement, and a less capable version to lowly private citizens.

Until now, the CheyTac Intervention M-200 was restricted to Military and Law Enforcement sales only due to its impressive capabilities and a desire by the CheyTac ownership to maintain every advantage with our Operators in the field. Now, CheyTac engineers have developed a mildly de-rated version of the M-200 named the CIV ( Civilian Intervention Version) to offer the long range competitor the outstanding capability of the M-200 while limiting its effective range to significantly less than that of the current Military versions.

CheyTac believes that in these times all responsible companies should first consider the American and allied troops in the field when offering long range precision rifle systems to the public at large.

So it would seem that CheyTac is happy enough to accept civilians' money, but at the same time wouldn't want to put the government's ability to impose its armed will on the populace in danger.

Compare the above philosophy with that embraced by Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, who, upon passage in California of a ban on .50 caliber rifles (for civilians), refused sales and services to any unit of California government, because that government, by imposing unconstitutional laws on its citizens, had become a criminal enterprise--and gun manufacturers have a moral and legal obligation to refuse sales to criminals (I've mentioned this before).

I am not in the market for a precision long-range tactical rifle (being confined to a wheelchair, and not having anything close to the kind of money I would need), but if I were, I would look very hard at one of Barrett's offerings chambered for the .416 Barrett round.

Ronnie Barrett supports the personal freedom of individual Americans. CheyTac supports governmental supremacy. Given those choices, I know whom I would support.

UPDATE: Oops--hadn't noticed that Snowflakes in Hell had written about this already back in May--and done so quite well.

Isn't that like putting a fox in charge of henhouse security?

Just a short post today--Independence Day isn't for blogging.

Well, apparently the BATFE's outrageous abuses at a Richmond, VA gun show in August, 2005 were perfectly fine after all--at least according to the "Justice" Department (Orwell would be proud of that organizational title). Keep in mind that even the BATFE stormtroopers eventually admitted that this kind of operation was a bit over the top, but now the Justice Department has absolved them.

Wait a second, though--isn't the BATFE part of the Justice Department? Are we to consider a vast (and vastly powerful) government agency investigating one of its own subsidiaries to be independent oversight? Are we truly that gullible?

Happy Independence Day.

The right to keep and bear . . . paperweights?

Yesterday, my attention was brought to this alarming development, as reported by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the government agency charged with assuring the safety and health of America's workers, is proposing a regulatory rule affecting the manufacturing, transportation and storage of small arms ammunition, primers and smokeless propellants.

As written, the proposed rule would force the closure of nearly all ammunition manufacturers and force the cost of small arms ammunition to skyrocket beyond what the market could bear—essentially collapsing our industry. This is not an exaggeration. The cost to comply with the proposed rule for the ammunition industry, including manufacturer, wholesale distributors and retailers, will be massive and easily exceed $100 million. For example, ammunition and smokeless propellant manufacturers would have to shut down and evacuate a factory when a thunderstorm approached and customers would not be allowed within 50 feet of any ammunition (displayed or otherwise stored) without first being searched for matches or lighters.

This would, of course render the American people disarmed in short order. Reloading, by the way, would not be a solution to this situation, since the manufacture/transportation/storage of primers and propellant powders would face the same degree of regulatory insanity as would whole rounds of ammunition.

In a guest editorial for War on Guns, Mike Vanderboegh provides a superb analysis of the dangers of allowing the government to choke off the ammunition supply to the civilian market, and explains how such an approach could be used as a back door to largely invalidating the Second Amendment.

If we allow that to happen, we deserve the tyranny that will inevitably follow.

Do I hear twelve?

In trying to keep up with the news of all the Illinois counties to pass resolutions formally rejecting Chicago-style "gun control," (recent posts about it can be found here, here, and here), I'm staying busy--and the pace would seem to be accelerating. Don't get me wrong--I'm certainly not complaining, but this is getting hard to keep up with (or up with which to keep--nobody makes me dangle a preposition when I choose not to ;-) ).

Anyway, yesterday saw not one, but two counties hitch themselves to the freedom train. Edwards and Wabash Counties have joined the growing body that rejects the dangerously flawed notion that the way to deal with violent crime is to trample the Constitutional rights of those who are not committing it. That makes twelve counties that have passed the resolution. The most current map thus looks like this:
(Click to enlarge)

By the way, I think the map should say that there are seven counties that have the resolution proposed, rather than eight.

I also need to make a correction of a statement I made Saturday--Massac County will have the resolution introduced today (or tonight, possibly), but it will not likely be voted on immediately, as I had stated.

Starting to feel lonely yet, Cook County?

Deacons for Defenselessness take their show nationwide

No longer content with limiting his publicity seeking harassment of law-abiding Chuck's Gun Shop, Jesse Jackson is planning, to expand his campaign nationwide on August 28th (no word on whether or not "Snuffy" Pfleger is going to be involved).

Unlike Mayor Bloomberg, Jackson makes no effort to claim that he is after only "illegal" guns--he blames every gun buyer for violence committed with firearms.

“Our marching does not kill people; people who buy guns from gun shops kill people,” Rev. Jackson said.

That's funny--I've bought more than a few guns from gun shops, and know folks who have bought many more, but I don't know anyone who has killed a person.

It would seem that at least part of Jackson's angst regarding guns is based on confusion:

Rev. Jackson said the nationwide rallies would represent a grassroots effort to press state and federal legislators into passing “common sense” legislation to stem the flow of handguns and military-style automatic weapons.

The reverend should be very pleased to know that since 1934, "military-style automatic weapons" have been very tightly controlled by federal law (and even more so by state laws, depending on the state). This is great! One of his biggest objections is now taken care of. Don't thank me, Jesse--glad I could help.

By the way, if anyone has any idea what the following snippet means, please let me know in the comments section:

The National Rifle Association, a powerful special-interest lobbying organization and chief proponent of lax rules for gun ownership, is promoting a federal bill that would, among other things, eliminate any limits on the quantities of guns an individual may purchase.

Er . . . what? There is currently no federal law imposing gun rationing on purchasers. Three states (California, Maryland, and--interestingly enough, given the civilian disarmament lobby's vitriol over its supposedly "loose gun laws"--Virginia) do have such legislation, but if there is any effort underway to pass a federal law that would invalidate the gun rationing laws in those three states, I have not heard of it (and I try to keep abreast of such things).

Could be another case of confusion on Jesse's part--he seems to suffer from that a lot.

We're the Only Ones simply stunning enough

In pining for the return of War on Guns, I decided to make my own weak attempt at an entry for the "Only Ones" files.

A skateboarder refused to leave the St. Mark's Hospital parking lot. A Salt Lake County sheriff's deputy tried to arrest him, but the skateboarder resisted, wrestling with the deputy, who then shot him with a Taser.

Another time, deputies chased a drunken Kearns man into his home - the man yelling, "I'm going to kill you, get my gun and shoot you" - and shot him with a Taser when he swung at them.

With each pull of the trigger, Utah officers are growing more comfortable with law enforcement's latest innovation, the 50,000-volt stun gun. Like duct tape, the weapons have become a fix-all for potentially volatile situations.

A Tribune analysis of more than 180 Taser deployments shows that police used the weapon four out of 10 times to subdue violent suspects, some already in handcuffs, others wielding knives.

I have no problem with the addition of a non-lethal (or "not usually lethal," anyway) option to the law enforcement toolbox--I just wonder if some officers find the use of these devices a little more enjoyable than they ought to.

I have also noticed that many jurisdictions erect high barriers (up to and including outright bans) to the use of these devices by all but the "Only Ones"--are they the "Only Ones" who might need to defend themselves when killing the assailant is a less than ideal solution?