Interesting profile of Bond Arms of Granbury, which makes derringers. The article calls them the only gun manufacturer in the DFW area, which I rather doubt.
Ted Cruz will be visiting LaRue Tactical to support the Second Amendment. Sadly, Wayne Slater is evidently too unprofessional to bother telling you when Cruz will be visiting. (Do they just not teach “Five Ws and an H” in journalism school anymore?) Since I offer a full-service blog: Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 11:00 AM, LaRue Tactical, 850 County Road 177, Leander, TX 78641.
Finally, here’s a fine NSFW rant about how liberal “civil libertarians” are only too ready to watch the rights of gun owners trampled:
“At the time the Constitution was written, the weapons in question were muskets.”
You know what? You’re right. And marriage was between one man and one woman. So what’s with gay marriage? No longer will I offer any moral support, oppose any online statements attacking it, speak out for it. They have the same right as anyone—to marry someone of the opposite gender. And given that all gays support raping little boys (just like all gun owners support shooting school kids), I don’t think I can support them. We should do things just the way they were done 220 years ago. That’s the liberal way.
“The Heller Decision was by an activist court. It doesn’t count.”
Indeed. Just like Roe v Wade was an activist decision. It doesn’t count.
“We’re not trying to take your guns away, just have reasonable limits. It’s a compromise.”
And some people want reasonable limits on abortion, like waiting periods, gestational time limits, ultrasound, etc. It’s a reasonable response to an activist court decision, and reasonable restrictions on a right, for public benefit. Don’t come whining about your right to murder babies, and I won’t come to you whining about my right to shoot school kids.
And no one is saying you can’t ride the bus. You just have to sit where people think is reasonable. No one is saying women can’t work. They just have to get paid what is reasonable for the work they do, allowing for the fact they’re going to leave the workplace and raise a family. It’s a compromise.
“Assault weapons are an extreme interpretation.”
True. And not allowing any religious emblems on government premises is an extreme interpretation. As long as they’re privately paid for, what’s it to you? No one is saying you can’t belong to the Christian church of your choice, just not to extreme groups, like atheists or Muslims. It would be paranoid to think anyone was trying to infringe on your legitimate right to be free from state religion, just like I’d be paranoid to think they wanted to take my guns. Quite a few states had official churches well into the 1800s. This is not an infringement on your freedom of religion.
“Given Sandy Hook, you have to make reasonable compromises.”
“We just want licensing and safe storage requirements so the wrong people don’t get guns.”
“Publicizing the information lets people make informed choices about who they live near.”
Accepted. In exchange, gay men should make reasonable compromises over Penn State. They will simply have to accept being registered and kept a safe distance from children. This isn’t a violation of their rights. It’s just common sense. The public has a right to know.
This should apply to protests, too. No reasonable person would object to being identified. They should welcome it—it means they can’t be wrongly maligned. All union members, blacks, gays and feminists should be signed in with ID before a march or gathering, just so we can track the real criminals to keep the rest safe.
Also:
First they came for the blacks, and I spoke up because it was wrong, even though I’m not black.
Then they came for the gays, and I spoke up, even though I’m not gay.
Then they came for the Muslims, and I spoke up, because it was wrong, even though I’m an atheist.
When they came for illegal aliens, I spoke up, even though I’m a legal immigrant.
Then they came for the pornographers, rebels and dissenters and their speech and flag burning, and I spoke up, because rights are not only for the establishment.
Then they came for the gun owners, and you liberal shitbags threw me under the bus, even though I’d done nothing wrong. So when they come to put you on the train, you can fucking choke and die.
If you want to commit a comically inept but still dangerous robbery, here are a few easy pointers from this Valentine’s Day holdup in Inkster, Michigan:
Be sure to try and rob the place in broad daylight.
Pick a place that has an obvious security company car parked right in front.
Make sure not to conceal your own features, even though there’s a security camera at the door.
Pull out your gun and wave it around in a limp-wristed fashion, ensuring you’re more likely to hurt yourself than hit what you’re aiming at when you fire.
Have your partner in crime lackadaisically take several seconds to casually pull her own gun out of her purse. No hurry! It’s not like speed is important during a daylight armed robbery.
Pick a tax preparation business where the guard has an AR-15 in the next room.
Run back out the front door in a panic when you see it.
To make sure you’ve understood all these vital pointers, watch the video below. (15 second ad at the beginning, but well worth it.)
The Week of Extreme Busyness continues (though the weekend has gotten slightly less busy), but here’s a semi-random LinkSwarm to end your work week with.
Thanks to ObamaCare’s electronic billing provisions, doctors “see fewer patients per shift than they did previously, and spend less time with each one.”
Grad student sues over university giving her a C+ in a class. Oh, and she also attend the university for free. Why not just hang a sign around your neck saying “No employer should ever hire me, I’m a lawsuit waiting to happen”?
More on Rick Perry’s California raid. “I’d take free-market capitalism over socialism any day, and that was the decision that we made,” said Waste Connections Inc Chairman and CEO Ron Mittelstaedt. “He added that it took Waste Connections 16 months to design and build a new, 11-story building in Texas, including eight weeks for permits. He estimated it would have taken three years just to get the permits in California. The California Environmental Quality Act is often cited by critics as a major cause of pointless delays on construction projects in particular.”
California’s aversion to both nuclear power and fossil fuels will probably cause blackouts in the state this year.
“Thanks to appointments by Gov. Jerry Brown, the Public Employment Relations Board has gone from an obscure agency to a union front.”
The Milkin Institute’s Kevin Klowden takes a brief look at which state has a better business climate. “California’s higher costs and a difficult-to-navigate regulatory system mean that a split has developed. While research and development and innovation are more likely to stay in California, companies often expand or move their back offices and new manufacturing to Texas.”
Says Perry: “When you’re fishing, you go where the fish are. I’m not out here forcing anybody to rent a van and head to Texas. We’re just giving a sales pitch here. It’s up to them to make the decision.”
“Straight-up competition between the states, the way our founding fathers envisioned it when they crafted that 10th Amendment.” And then SF Gate offers up a definition of the Tenth Amendment, for all those Californians unfamiliar with that quaint and curious document known as “The Constitution of the United States of America.”
I sat in a Texas Public Policy Foundation teleconference on the current state legislative session, the main topic of which was Texas efforts to fight Democrats gun control agenda at the national level. On hand were Arlene Wohlgemuth, Mario Loyola and James Golsan, though I believe all the gun control points were from Loyola. Here are a few very brief notes on the call:
There are three main legislative to avoid federal gun control laws being enacted in Texas:
Nullification: Refuse Cooperation. “We don’t think this approach is constitutional or can prevail.”
Keep state employees from becoming agents of the federal government. “Printz vs. United States struck down part of the Brady Act that forced state officials to enforce federal law.” Make it illegal to cooperate.
Gun control version of TSA Groping bill, Rep. Otto sponsored (HR 553). “Arrest those trying to enforce unconstitutional laws, sort it out in court. High risk, high reward.”
Some Republicans losing their nerve against fighting ObamaCare.
Loyola: There’s a difference between setting up exchanges and Medicaid expansion. Later is holding a gun to our heads and will bankrupt our country. It’s important for Texas to hold the line rather than giving into blackmail with their own money. Republican governors need to hold the line to prevent Texas from going it alone.
Once again a federal judge wants Texas to spend more money on education ($2,000 more per student). Smart play is to appeal and take no legislative action while the issue works its way through the court.
No sooner did I post yesterday’s California vs. Texas update than all manner of related news pours forth.
First, I missed the news that John Stossel did a story on Texas vs. California back in January. That link takes you to the whole thing (which i haven’t watched yet), but here’s a taste featuring ex-Californian and current Texas Public Policy Foundation vice president of policy Chuck DeVore:
Naturally, the states media outlets are trying to downplay Texas’ advantage. Fortunately, here’s DeVore again debunking their claims good and hard. Read the whole thing.
Earlier this week, Texas Governor Rick Perry went on the offensive with a radio ad in California suggesting businesses relocate here:
Needless to say, California’s liberal establishment is perturbed.
CalPERS: the pension fund that ate California. A tale filled with lies, waste, and outright corruption that’s even worse than I thought (and I thought it plenty bad).
Via the indispensable Will Franklin comes this eye-opening comparison of welfare in California vs. Texas. “As you can see, California is practically in a quadrant unto itself, indicating a lot of people receiving a lot each in welfare benefits. Meanwhile, Texas is situated precisely in the opposite corner of the graphic, indicating that a low percentage of Texas’ residents are receiving welfare, and among those who are receiving welfare, they’re receiving smaller benefits than those living essentially anywhere else in the country.” Read the whole thing. And get a gander at the chart.
Jerry Brown gets voters to approve a measure that cuts California public employee union pensions a tiny, weensie bit. The result? “California Public Employees’ Retirement System is essentially going to defy the order that pensions will be calculated based on base pay by declaring enhancements and bonuses are part of base pay.” And some unions are suing to opt out. And Brown isn’t even willing to defend the reforms in court.
“The highest-paid 10 percent of Southern California Edison employees earned at least $418.8 million in combined total compensation during 2011, and charged at least $11.8 million to their expense accounts, according to a report the public utility filed with the state. SCE’s most recent annual report showed 19 executives and other SCE employees received more than $1 million in total compensation during 2011, and at least 130 others received $300,000 or more in total compensation.”
And by “an advanced new stealth fighter plane,” I mean “a large plastic RC aircraft that’s obviously not suited for combat, stealth, or actually carrying a pilot.”
“The engine section lacks any kind of nozzle: engine afterburners could melt the entire jet.”
“The cockpit seems to be too small, to such an extent a normal pilot doesn’t properly fit in the ejection seat. Have you ever seen a pilot with his knees above the side borders of the cockpit and his helmet well beyond the ejection seat’s head pad?”
“The canopy lacks transparency and looks like it is made of plexiglass.”
Many viewers have said that the cockpit instrumentation resembles that of a Cessna rather than a fighter aircraft.
It’s always fun to watch liberals stub their toes against reality. This time around it’s JournoLista Matthew Yglesias who is shocked, shocked to discover that trying to start a small business (in his case renting out a spare house) is wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape. When this was pointed out to him on Twitter, he protested that he had often complained about local government red tape. Fine and dandy, but why is he such an enthusiast for big government at the federal level?
His dichotomy of thought seems to suggest there are several blind-spots in his understanding of economics (a rather significant drawback for a journalist who regularly write about economics). Watching him fail to draw the obvious conclusions on the baleful effect of big government on small business is almost priceless in its cluelessness. Let’s discuss a few of the many, many ideas that never seemed to have occurred to him, shall we?
In ways big and small, every single day is like what Yglesias described for small business dealing with big government.
Trudging between bureaucrats, Yglesias should have thought to himself: “ObamaCare will be 1000 times worse for small business than this.” Because it will be. But of course he can’t do that, given what a cheerleader he is for ObamaCare and how he belittled business owner concerns. But it’s always different when it happens to you.
The idea that red tape scales (at a minimum) with the size of government does not seem to have occurred to him.
And excessive red tape begets excessive local red tape complying with federal mandates.
He complains that the process he had to go through could have been made more efficient. What does he think all those Democratic patronage machine jobs are for?
If he’s been writing about economics for years, but is just now discovering the problems of how big government slows down business, you wonder: Does he never get out of DC? He could have picked up the phone and talked to real business owners who work outside the Liberal Reality Bubble and discovered all this many many years ago.
Bureaucratic inefficiencies are much like cockroaches: for every instance you see, there are thousands you don’t. And just like cockroaches, they swarm and multiply off in the dark while you’re not looking.
I’m going to bet that Yglesias has never read James Q. Wilson’s Bureaucracy.
And yet there’s a certain perverse pleasure in watching Yglesias wrestle with the problems of big government and not draw the obvious conclusion. It’s like watching a man hold the 6th piece of a 6-piece jigsaw puzzle, look back and forth between the piece and hole and declare “I just don’t understand!” It’s like watching a blind man suddenly given sight and see the elephant he had been feeling for the first time in his life, then resolutely put on opaque glasses and mutter “No, that can’t be it.” Or like Butt-Head trying to figure out what happened to his TV:
He can’t figure it out because he won’t let himself figure it out. Too much of his own self-love is tied up in the notion that he’s good because he’s a liberal, and liberals are good because big government is good in and of itself. For every maddening piece of red tape, somewhere out there was a Matthew Yglesias who thought that having government run and regulate something was just a swell idea.
You do it to yourself, you do. And that’s what really hurts…
