Reporting from Madison, Wis. -- Jen Lynch and her family live in the heart of the city but roll out of bed to the sound of clucking chickens.
Their day starts with cleaning coops, scooping out feed and hunting for eggs for morning omelets. Eight families in a three-block radius and an estimated 150 families citywide do the same.
"It's our slice of rural life, minus the barns," said Jen Lynch, 35, as Flicka the chicken pecked at her backyard lawn.
As the recession drags on, city dwellers and suburbanites alike are transforming their backyards into poultry farms. Victory gardens, proponents say, are not enough. Chickens are the next step.
"People are turning to things that remind them of simpler times," said Ron Kean, a poultry specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "If you're smart, you can save money doing this."
Growing interest in backyard chickens has fans rallying for change in dozens of cities, although the movement leaves some people squawking.
"I moved to the city for a reason," said Evan Feinberg, 41, a technology consultant in Madison who said he grew up on a Midwest farm. "I never wanted to see another chicken, unless it's wrapped in plastic."
Still, the idea of urban chickens is picking up steam. In Traverse City, Mich., officials are weighing the issue. In Iowa City, Iowa, chicken lovers have collected 600 signatures urging local officials to permit backyard chickens.
Poultry fans in Madison persuaded the city's common council to reverse a ban on backyard hens about five years ago. The ordinance -- similar to regulations in Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore -- allows up to four chickens per property. The animals are to be raised for eggs, and must be housed in a coop that is far separated from neighboring homes. (Roosters are typically banned in cities because of crowing.)
The Lynches assembled their wire-and-wood coop, about the size of a big doghouse, with $40 worth of building supplies and wood salvaged from neighbors. Flicka and her sister, Lucy, were adopted from friends.
In exchange, their hens give them 14 eggs a week, a bug-free backyard and manure for compost bins.
"And they're cute," said Evie Lynch, 9, who takes the russet-hued Flicka for a walk each night before bedtime. "They like to snuggle in my arms."
Chick hatcheries say they can't keep up with urban orders. Murray McMurray Hatchery, the world's largest supplier of rare-breed chicks, has sold out of its "Meat and Egg Combo" collection of meat birds and laying hens. Customers hungry for a standard hen must wait: There's a six-week backlog on orders. ...
... In former chapters of “Meccania – Atlantis” I described Podism (1) as a sort of mental chip programmed for white people’s (2) collective guilt and self-loathing, irrational and false assumptions about the superior virtue and moral deservedness of nonwhites, nondiscrimination as the highest value, ahistorical and utopian delusions, and the conviction that the road to universal peace and brotherhood hinges on the unilateral self-disablement of the West’s collective survival mechanism and the disablement of autochthon Westerners’ individual (3) survival mechanisms as well.
Another way of putting it is that after decades of promoting yin (i.e. the cosmic female element) and suppressing yang (i.e. the cosmic male element), the West now suffers from yin toxemia. As per Chinese Taoist precepts, this produces an overabundance of the soft, wet, squishy, sweet, flabby, irrational, diffuse energy that characterizes yin, and a shortage of the hard, dry, salty, muscular, rational and compacting male (i.e. yang) energy that could rectify this imbalance.
The yin-soaked West rests on a foundation of feelings. It feels for the plight of the female trapped in a male body, the Somali who has never seen indoor plumbing, and the abandoned son of a Kenyan exchange student who made good. That all such feelings translate into actions that dismantle the West financially, demographically and culturally no longer registers, for reason no longer registers, nor does survival. This is the age of I feel, therefore I am. The essence of yin.
The West is no longer able to deal with the abundant yang characteristics of the nonwhite, male-dominated ethnic groups – acting as “minorities” on the inside, and rogue and semi-rogue nations on the outside. In particular, gelded Snatchland (4) is unable to perceive, let alone to protect itself, from the main characteristic of the yang groups: Nashism.
Nashism is a neologism derived from the Russian word for "ours." Nashi is how the Russian refers to the Russian side in a war, dispute, or soccer match, the other side being vashi, "yours." It is a command of the heart, the culture, almost the language itself, that a Russian identify with and support nashi, irrespective of right or wrong, gain or loss, truth or falsehood.
If this is so for the Russian, it's squared for the Chinese, for whom the white person is still laowai, “old outsider,” or gweizi, “foreign devil.” It's squared as well for the second and third generation Mexican-American, for whom Mexico is the land of the heart, and the US is a depot where idiot gringos hand out massive social entitlement gift packages to foreign invaders with user instructions in the invaders’ own language.
It's squared also for the 10th generation African American, who – a rare and despised 'Oreo' like Thomas Sowell or Ward Connerly excepted – all too-often acquits black murderers if he is on jury duty; takes up reflexively the cause of black hoodlums (the "Jena Six," "Free Mumia" etc); votes for black candidates irrespectively of their qualifications; sees white "racism" where there is only his own racism; and sees only other blacks as "brothers."
Muslim Nashism is the ultimate: it's dar-al-Islam, "the abode of peace," for Muslims, and dar-al-Harb, "the abode of war," for the kuffar – that's you and me, the infidels. A practicing Muslim, be he 4th generation Swiss, cannot be true to his faith unless he treat the Islamic ummah as nashi, in precedence to his civic nation, vashi. Incidentally, Switzerland’s motto being Einer für alle, alle für einen (One for All, All for One), only a ruling elite of Body Snatcher cretins could have thought up the idea of importing 350,000 Muslims (5), 4.5% of the population, to that country.
Postmodern identity politics have made of gender another powerful tribal force, with the feminist “sisterhood” or groups formed according to GLBT sexual practices supplanting traditional civic allegiance. In contrast, Western ethos instills a civic commitment to one's nation, not a tribal commitment to one’s folk or genital affinity group. This disparity, catalyzed by the Pod creed, causes Snatcher State to hobble its majority autochthon people in order to confer advantages on disaffected centrifugal groups who show no reciprocal munificence.
Raymond Kraft, [hat tip, Fjordman] has written that the Islamic movement has turned the civility of the Western peoples into a weapon against them. It has weaponized niceness, compassion and the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. “We have become too civilized to defeat our enemies, perhaps too civilized to survive.” True, but it applies to much more than just Muslim colonization.
The questions this begs is, first, how could such insanity have taken hold in a civilization based on reason, and second, how could a “mental virus” alone produce this level of collective psychopathology, unmatched in the recorded history of mankind. The answers require that we move on to the next Russian expression, kto kogo.
Kto kogo, which means the same in several Slavic languages is “who whom.” Like in “who is ruling, dominating, doing in, controlling whom.” This was Lenin’s formula for instant clarity in politics.
The good intentions of the squishy West stem from biblical morality so mainstream that a sermon in a random Western church or synagogue sounds like induction into the Body Snatcher creed. There is the shame and sorrow for Nazism and Fascism, Colonialism and Slavery, centuries of poisonous anti-Semitism, copious internecine bloodshed in the name of the loving Jesus or xenophobic nationalism, exploitation of peasants, workers and women.
Contrition and restoration one can understand. But suicide?
After all, any calamity, any atrocity committed in the history of Western civilization was exceeded in non-Western civilizations – and they don’t have the West’s redeeming features on the other side of the ledger either. Both Stalin and Mao murdered more people than Hitler did. The Khmer Rouge murdered 26% of Cambodia’s population in four years (6). In the 1200 years of Arab slave trading, millions more Africans were enslaved by Arabs and treated with far greater cruelty than were ever by white men. As Thomas Sowell, a descendant of slaves himself, has pointed out (7), more Europeans were enslaved and taken to North Africa by Barbary Coast pirates alone than there were African slaves taken to America.
In Japan, a samurai could cut a peasant in half under the pretext of an insult, but really just to test his sword. Besides the hard feudalism, racism and ethnocentrism of the East Asian peoples, there is the cruel gynophobia of the Muslims, the appalling savagery of the Amerindians, and so on. But according to such intellectual luminaries as Susan Sontag -- and I am quoting – it’s the white race that’s the cancer of human history.
That’s where Lenin’s kto kogo comes in. Since the 1920s, hard core Western leftists, under the guidance of the Comintern and the KGB (and KGB’s predecessors, OGPU and NKVD), have fashioned “fascism” and “racism” into a lever with which to upend the West. It’s with the help of this lever that Lenin’s useful idiots were once stamped assembly-line fashion out of Western yin material. Though the original masters are gone, it’s this lever still that 80 years later activates the hydraulic presses from which issue next generations of Pods. ...
Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor claim that her Second Amendment rulings are examples of "judicial restraint." The problem is that she's restraining the Second Amendment.
Judge Sotomayor has ruled twice that the right to keep and bear arms is not a "fundamental right." The second time was after the U.S. Supreme Court said that it is.
...
On Jan. 28, 2009, Sotomayor was a member of another three-judge Second Circuit panel, which considered a Second Amendment challenge to New York's ban on "the in home possession" of a nunchaku, a weapon made of two sticks connected by a rope. In Maloney v. Cuomo, defendant James M. Maloney, an attorney, was charged with six violations including a felony, for nothing more than private possession of a nunchaku. He pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of "disorderly conduct," agreed to destruction of his nunchaku, and reserved his right to appeal. On appeal, he argued, among other things, that the state law violated his Second Amendment right, his liberty interest and privileges and immunities under the 14th Amendment.
Six months after the Supreme Court's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, Sotomayor joined an unsigned six-page opinion in Cuomo, that Second Amendment rights are not "fundamental": "Legislative acts that do not interfere with fundamental rights or single out suspect classifications carry with them a strong presumption of constitutionality and must be upheld if ‘rationally related to a legitimate state interest.'" The Supreme Court has granted Maloney an extension of time to file his petition seeking review. ...
In the wild, large predators like wolves and lions tend to select old or sick animals from the herd to attack. The reason is simple, these are the weakest animals, increasing the chance of a successful kill and decreasing the chance for injury to the predator.
It is no different with human predators. Muggers, robbers, carjackers, home invaders, etc. all look for the easiest target that will give them the greatest chance of success with the least chance of injury to themselves. This is demonstrated by the recent increase in crimes against the elderly in the Columbus area, rising from an average of 55-60 incidents per month to a reported 110 for April (nearly double).
...
Very few people in their seventies or eighties can fight off a mugger who is in his prime if they are unarmed. But give that person a defensive firearm, and suddenly the odds for survival jump significantly. Firearms are known as equalizers for a reason. An armed senior citizen is more than capable of defeating a criminal attack by a much younger and stronger assailant. ...
The United Kingdom and Australia instituted gun bans in 1997. Between 1995 and 2006, women in the United Kingdom suffered a 76.5% increase in rape; by 2007 Australian women experienced a 29.9% increase. Meanwhile, rape decreased 19.1% in America.*
Today, women are raped twice as often in the UK as America, and Australian women are raped three times as often. This is damning evidence that gun control places women at greater risk. American women are hearing this message, and more and more are arming themselves every day, not only to protect themselves and their families from harm, but to ensure our government doesn’t enact laws which disenfranchise women. [emphasis added] ...
A proposed change in Omaha's gun ordinances could help police connect more criminals to their crimes.
Dealers of secondhand guns would be required to collect the fingerprints of people selling guns to them under an ordinance proposed by City Council President Garry Gernandt.
"I think this is a move to keep honest people honest and provide law enforcement with an additional tool in their investigation process," said Gernandt, a former police officer.
Currently, only pawnshops are required to collect fingerprints from gun sellers. Secondhand-gun shops such as Scheels, Carl Jarl Lock, Safe and Gun Co., and Guns Unlimited are not.
"We just want to be able to track back people who sell guns," said Police Chief Eric Buske. ...
Shifting political sands in Albany can cause just about any lawful gun owner heartache these days. If you haven't heard about it already, New York Senate Bill 4397A is a big reason.
Known as the crime gun identification act of 2009, this bill is being moved in the name of resolving those gun homicide cases that go unsolved for one reason or another.
According to the bill, "firearm micro-stamping is an evolutionary forensic technology that produces an alpha-numeric and geometric code onto the rear of the cartridge casing each time a semiautomatic pistol is fired."
The idea is that law enforcement can then use that code to identify the owner of the pistol and generally aid investigations.
Every new semiautomatic pistol sold in New York state would have to have this micro-stamping technology built into the gun, or it could not be sold here.
To those of us who legally own guns, this just doesn't make sense. To the non-gun owner, this bill sounds logical and that's the danger here. We need the folks who don't own guns to understand what this bill will go beyond its intent. Law abiding gun owners recognize the bill will not do anything to either solve homicides or reduce illegal gun trafficking.
Let me explain. The basic principle of the bill is that by requiring semiautomatic pistols to micro-stamp ammunition, law enforcement will able to trace the shell casings to the gun that micro-stamped it. Do you think criminals are going to run out and get one that can micro-stamp their ammunition?
Criminals who do bad things with any gun don't follow gun regulations regardless of what the law prescribes. If anything, micro-stamping laws may actually increase illegal gun trafficking. ...
Last September Sen. Barack Obama promised that under his health-care proposal "you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves." On Monday, President Obama repeated that promise in a speech to the American Medical Association. It's not true.
The president is barnstorming the nation, urging swift approval of legislation that is taking shape in Congress. This legislation -- the Affordable Health Choices Act that's being drafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- will push Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls. It specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116). [emphasis added]
Members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. They "can choose from among consumer-driven and high deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health saving/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or fee-for-service (FFS) plans, and their preferred provider organizations (PPO), or health maintenance organizations (HMO)." These choices would be nice for all of us, but they're not in the offing. Instead, if you don't enroll in a "qualified" health plan and submit proof of enrollment to the federal government, you'll be tracked down and fined (sections 3101 and 6055). [emphasis added] ...
, although her first starring role was in the Bernardo Bertolucci film The Dreamers
, where she appears completely, fabulously, and extensively sans habillement. That means naked for my less subtle readers. :)
Eva Green was born Eva Gaëlle Green on July 5, 1980, in Paris, France. She has a non-identical twin sister. Her father, named Walter Green, is a Swedish dentist who once appeared in the 1966 film Au hasard Balthazar (1966). Her mother, named Marlène Jobert, is an Algerian-born (during the time Algeria was part of France) French actress who retired from acting and became a writer of children's books. Young Eva Green left French school at 17. She switched to English in Ramsgate, Kent, and went to the American School in France for one year. She studied acting at Saint Paul Drama School in Paris for three years, then had a 10-week polishing course at the Weber Douglas Academy of dramatic Art in London. She also studied directing at the Tisch School of Arts at New York University.
She returned to Paris as an accomplished young actress, and played on stage in several theater productions: "La Jalousie en Trois Fax" and "Turcaret". There she caught the eye of director Bernardo Bertolucci. Green followed a recommendation to work on her English. She studied for two months with an English coach before doing The Dreamers (2003) with Bernardo Bertolucci. During their work Bertolucci described Green as being "so beautiful it's indecent." Green won critical acclaim for her role in The Dreamers (2003). She also attracted a great deal of attention from male audiences for her full frontal nudity in several scenes of the film. Besides her work as an actress Green also composed original music and recorded several sound tracks for the film score. ...
State income-tax revenue fell 26% in the first four months of 2009 compared to the same period last year, according to a survey of states by the nonprofit Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
The report, conducted by the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York, is one of the most up-to-date measures of how deep the recession is digging into Americans' wallets and, consequently, state coffers.
States are required by law to balance the budget, so lower tax revenues will translate in service cuts, rather than red ink. Already states such as Kansas are slowing the payment of income-tax refunds and delaying payments to local school districts, according to the report.
Withholdings from the first four months of 2009 were down 6.9% from the same period in 2008, signaling that "many people had a very bad start of the year" with lower salaries and wages, says Don Boyd, a senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute. ...
Frustrated by the expanded power of Washington, a growing number of state lawmakers are defying the federal government and passing legislation aimed at rolling back the reach of Congress and President Obama.
While many measures are symbolic ones declaring the sovereignty of states, some Westerners are taking more dramatic steps. One Utah lawmaker wants to limit federal law enforcement in his state. In Montana, legislators enacted a bill that flagrantly ignores federal firearm restrictions, hoping to force a constitutional showdown.
Supporters of the bill want the Supreme Court to eliminate gun controls and, eventually, curtail Washington's ability to set policy on a wide range of issues, including education, civil rights, law enforcement and land use.
"It's about states' rights," said state Rep. Joel Boniek, an independent-turned-Republican from nearby Livingston, who introduced the bill. "Guns are just the vehicle."
The Montana Firearms Freedom Act seeks to exempt from federal regulation any firearm, gun component or ammunition made and kept within the state's borders. The legislation, signed by Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, becomes law Oct. 1, though federal officials will likely act quickly to keep the measure from taking effect.
Legal experts are skeptical Montana will prevail in court, and even some proponents express their doubts. But supporters say the fight is a necessary step to change Washington's attitude. Similar bills have been introduced in nearly a half dozen states, and lawmakers in about a dozen more have expressed interest.
"We need 15, 25, 30 states to pass these types of legislation, so that we send a clear message to the country and to the national government," said Utah Rep. Carl Wimmer, a Republican from suburban Salt Lake City.
In addition to supporting a version of Montana's gun law, Wimmer is drafting legislation that would forbid local authorities to help enforce federal statutes inside Utah -- another bill that, if passed, would surely trigger a court fight. ...
A number of emailers have written wondering why I haven't commented on Obama's health care plans for America.
Doug Ross highlights an ad/op-ed piece by Nicolas Kristof, part of the massive PR campaign in the Age of Obama to make socialized medicine palatable to the American public. Kristof calls people like me "scaremongers;" and defiantly says, "This time we won't scare." But he doesn't have to worry.
I'm done.
My entire professional life as a physician and psychiatrist I have been exceptionally vocal about the prospect of government medicine here in the US. I have given impassioned speeches (when I was younger); written essays in medical journals and elsewhere; and talked until I am blue in the face to anyone and everyone about the horrors of socialized medicine and government interference in the health care system of this country. Once it would have seemed impossible that I would ever want to quit medicine; to stop practicing psychiatry.
I have watched with dismay as every year we have inched closer and closer to the Democrats and the left's goals; goals which I firmly believe will completely destroy American medicine. I have watched up close and personal the utter soul-destroying consequences to both patients and doctors alike, of the pervasive cultural collectivist and looter thinking in my specialty. Every time this madness is killed, it just doesn't stay dead. Like some kind of putrefying zombie, the left just keeps resurrecting it. Logic doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. [emphasis added]
Let's face it. To the zombies of the left, reality doesn't matter. With President Postmodern in office, aided and abetted by zombie hordes in Congress; why should I pretend anymore that it does?
This time around, I JUST DON'T CARE ANYMORE. If that's what people want, so be it.
I'm done. If Congress passes Obama's destructive zombie health plan in any form, I quit.
I will simply not practice medicine anymore. I will take my psychiatry books and my years of experience and do something else. I used to wait tables when I was in college. It's an honest living and Obama isn't interested for the time being in nationalizing restaurants--yet. ...
... A non-trivial percentage of Medical Doctors, often including the "best and the brightest" have no interest in becoming employees of the Federal Bureaucracy, with work rules, fees, and treatments determined by a set of Washington Bureaucrats who have no idea what clinical medicine entails.
...
A final point: I am tired of being told that "rich" Doctors make too much money and should sacrifice so that everyone can have access to universal health care, ie access to my expertise at a non-market price. (If I'm so rich why do I drive a Honda with 135,000 miles and my wife drives a Honda with 150,000 miles, instead of a new Mercedes or Lexus? It is not because we love driving cars that require a lot of maintenance.) Medicare, the model for government run health care, has cut compensation for Doctors by ~30% in the last decade, with greater cuts sure to follow. My compensation from Medicare has been cut an additional 8% because a year ago I had to hire a billing service (who takes the aforementioned 8%) because Medicare had become so adept as finding ways to avoid paying my bills. I stopped my involvement on any insurance panels many years ago and as of last year will not accept another Medicare patient. I don't care if you think I am selfish, over-value my time and expertise, or any of the other comments that have come my way since this debate started. Like Dr. Sanity, I no longer care; if the country wants government run health care, welcome to it and know that I will not be a part of it. ...
The first “anti-stab” knife is to go on sale in Britain, designed to work as normal in the kitchen but to be ineffective as a weapon.
(Photo: U.K. Times Online)
The knife has a rounded edge instead of a point and will snag on clothing and skin to make it more difficult to stab someone.
It was invented by industrial designer John Cornock, who was inspired by a documentary in which doctors advocated banning traditional knives.
Mr Cornock, 42, from Swindon, said that the knife will cut vegetables, but will make it almost impossible to stab someone to death and will reduce the risk of accidental injuries.
He said: “It can never be a totally safe knife, but the idea is you can’t inflict a fatal wound. Nobody could just grab one out of the kitchen drawer and kill someone.” [emphasis added] ...
Mammoth Cave National Park has long banned guns from its underground treasures, saying that keeps the public and employees safe.
"Once you get inside a cave tour, there are not a lot of exits — you can be two miles from an exit, and half a mile from a phone," said supervisory park ranger Brad McDougal.
But legislation passed by Congress in April, and signed by President Barack Obama, is intended to open national park, as well as federal wildlife refuges, to people carrying loaded guns, making "it clear that the Second Amendment rights of an individual should not be infringed."
It remains unclear, however, how far the new law will extend gun rights in national parks and federal wildlife refuges.
At Mammoth Cave National Park, for example, it's not certain whether the new law means guns will be allowed inside the park's cave — known for its gypsum lined passages, narrow canyons, large rooms, and dripstone formations — or in the park's visitor center and staff offices, or whether they'll only be allowed in campgrounds, or on roads, trails and in the backcountry of the 82-square-mile natural and historical preserve 75 miles south of Louisville.
That's because federal attorneys are still sorting through legal issues, including how the new law can work with an existing general ban on guns in federal facilities.
At Mammoth Cave park, officials have deemed the cave, park offices and the visitor center to be a "federal facility," but not campgrounds and trails, McDougal said.
So, "We are waiting for guidance from Washington" he said. ...
Gary Marbut isn't aiming to eliminate federal gun laws. He just wants to make them much less relevant.
Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, is one of the leaders of a new grassroots movement that's seeking to invoke the principle of states' rights -- including states' own authority to regulate firearms -- to thwart what he and his allies view as an increasingly overreaching federal government.
Politicians in Washington have "assumed power that many of us believe was not authorized under the limits of the Constitution," Marbut said in an interview with CBSNews.com last week.
This modern-day federalist revolt began with a Montana state law recently signed by Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer. It says that firearms, ammunition, and accessories manufactured entirely inside Montana are not subject to federal regulation, including background checks for buyers and record-keeping requirements for sellers. They would remain subject to state regulation. ...
The eminent Nation announces with relish "the organization of a national committee of 100 to induce Congress to prohibit the inter-State traffic in revolvers," and offers the pious judgment that it is "a step forward." "Crime statistics," it appears, "show that 90% of the murders that take place are committed by the use of the pistol, and every year there are hundreds of cases of accidental homicide because somebody did not know that his revolver was loaded." The new law — or is it to be a constitutional amendment? — will do away with all that. "It will not be easy," of course, "to draw a law that will permit exceptions for public officers and bank guards" — to say nothing of Prohibition agents and other such legalized murderers. "But soon even these officials may get on without revolvers."
...
The new law that it advocated, indeed, is one of the most absurd specimens of jackass legislation ever heard of, even in this paradise of legislative donkeyism. Its single and sole effect would be to exaggerate enormously all of the evils it proposes to put down. It would not take pistols out of the hands of rogues and fools; it would simply take them out of the hands of honest men. The gunman today has great advantages everywhere. He has artillery in his pocket, and he may assume that, in the large cities, at least two-thirds of his prospective victims are unarmed. But if the Nation's proposed law (or amendment) were passed and enforced, he could assume safely that all of them were unarmed.
Here I do not indulge in theory. The hard facts are publicly on display in New York State, where a law of exactly the same tenor is already on the books — the so-called Sullivan Law. In order to get it there, of course, the Second Amendment had to be severely strained, but the uplifters advocated the straining unanimously, and to the tune of loud hosannas, and the courts, as usual, were willing to sign on the dotted line. It is now a dreadful felony in New York to "have or possess" a pistol. Even if one keeps it locked in a bureau drawer at home, one may be sent to the hoosegow for ten years. More, men who have done no more are frequently bumped off. The cops, suspecting a man, say, of political heresy, raid his house and look for copies of the Nation. They find none, and are thus baffled — but at the bottom of a trunk they do find a rusted and battered revolver. So he goes on trial for violating the Sullivan Law, and is presently being psychoanalyzed by the uplifters at Sing Sing.
With what result? With the general result that New York, even more than Chicago, is the heaven of footpads, hijackers, gunmen and all other such armed thugs. Their hands upon their pistols, they know that they are safe. Not one citizen out of a hundred that they tackle is armed — for getting a license to keep a revolver is a difficult business, and carrying one without it is more dangerous than submitting to robbery. So the gunmen flourish and give humble thanks to God. Like the bootleggers, they are hot and unanimous for Law Enforcement.
III.
To all this, of course, the uplifters have a ready answer. (At having ready answers, indeed, they always shine!) The New York thugs, they say, are armed to the teeth because New Jersey and Connecticut lack Sullivan Laws. When one of them wants a revolver all he has to do is to cross the river or take a short trolley trip. Or, to quote the Nation, he may "simply remit to one of the large firms which advertise the sale of their weapons by mail." The remedy is the usual dose: More Law. Congress is besought to "prohibit the inter-State traffic in revolvers, especially to bar them from the mails."
It is all very familiar, and very depressing. Find me a man so vast an imbecile that he seriously believes that this prohibition would work. What would become of the millions of revolvers already in the hands of the American people — if not in New York, then at least everywhere else? (I own two and my brother owns at least a dozen, though neither of us has fired one since the close of the Liberty Loan drives.) Would the cops at once confiscate this immense stock, or would it tend to concentrate in the hands of the criminal classes? If they attempted confiscation, how would they get my two revolvers — lawfully acquired and possessed — without breaking into my house? Would I wait for them docilely — or would I sell out, in anticipation, to the nearest pistol bootlegger?
...
The real victim of moral legislation is always the honest, law-abiding, well-meaning citizen — what the late William Graham Sumner called the Forgotten Man. Prohibition makes it impossible for him to take a harmless drink, cheaply and in a decent manner. In the same way the Harrison Act puts heavy burdens upon the physician who has need of prescribing narcotic drugs for a patient, honestly and for good ends. But the drunkard still gets all the alcohol that he can hold, and the drug addict is still full of morphine and cocaine. By precisely the same route the Nation's new law would deprive the reputable citizen of the arms he needs for protection, and hand them over to the rogues that he needs protection against. ...
HARLAN, Ky. – Bobby Koger was deer hunting on a Kentucky hillside when a black bear gave him the fright of his life.
A 300-pound animal, apparently unhappy that an intruder was on his turf, came charging and didn't stop until Koger raised his .50 caliber muzzleloading rifle and fired from point-blank range. A hunting companion who witnessed the attack from a distance also shot the bruin, which wheeled, ran a short distance and collapsed.
Conservation officers concluded that they fired in self-defense at a bear that had lost its natural fear of humans.
With black bear populations rising, run-ins have become almost commonplace — more than 15,000 in the past year in states east of the Mississippi River according to a survey of state wildlife agencies. [emphasis added]...
Cities and counties across Tennessee are preparing this week to deal with the fallout from a raft of pro-gun bills recently signed into law in the state, where Republicans are flexing their new-found strength in the legislature.
Among the new laws is one that would allow people who have gun permits to carry guns in all public parks in the state. Another would exempt from federal regulation guns and ammunition made in Tennessee and kept within its borders.
The measure with the most immediate impact may be the guns-in-parks law. Cities and towns have the chance to opt out of it by Sept. 1 and are beginning debate now about whether to do so. The City of Nashville is scheduled to start hearings on Tuesday.
The measure allowing guns in state parks went into effect Friday and will probably go into effect in national parks starting in February. It applies to the 220,000 Tennesseans who hold gun permits as well as visitors from other states with valid permits.
The law exempting Tennessee from federal gun regulations, while having little immediate effect, may have broader implications down the road. It comes as part of a states’-rights movement that tries to test the limits of federal power. The Tennessee bill is nearly identical to one signed into law in Montana and similar to ones under consideration in other states. Since Montana’s law does not take effect until Oct. 1, the one in Tennessee, which takes effect July 1, could become the first test case in the courts.
“The purpose of this bill is to let people know we have state sovereignty and the federal government has no business telling us what to do,” State Senator Mae Beavers, a Mount Juliet Republican who sponsored the bill, said in an interview. ...
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel joined 21 other state attorneys general Thursday in writing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to oppose any proposed effort to reinstate the federal assault-weapons ban, which was passed in 1994 but expired in 2004. ...
In Milwaukee, the police chief Ed Flynn says, “My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we’ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it.”
Since when does a police chief decide who has what rights? Our rights are God-given and are protected by our Constitution. Government documents do not grant us rights, those documents limit the power of government to infringe upon our rights.
Self-defense is a primary human right that must never be stripped away.
The silence surrounding this comment was deafening. There was no uproar about this power-hungry militant’s efforts to impose his will upon the people living in “his” community. The local newspapers hardly gave the comment a second look. They were more concerned with the memo issued by Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen that affirmed the legality of open carry in Wisconsin. What followed that memo were dark predictions of confused police officers and a Wild West mentality sweeping the state.
But I’m looking at this from the other side.
What would have happened on the editorial pages in Wisconsin if Flynn had come out and said, “If we see any negative press we will handcuff the reporters and editors, shut down that newspaper and decide if they have the right to publish that stuff.”
Can you imagine the uproar from the media? ...
... At this time, there are no photos of the new Glock models, and I was unable to reach any Glock officials to confirm this information, as I received this after their offices closed.
Glock led the polymer handgun revolution, but has been criticized by some for not remaining innovative with new designs. The Smith and Wesson M&P has gained back some of the ground it lost to Glock years ago with police departments because of features like interchangeable back straps that allow the user to better fit the gun to his or her hand. ...
A new Montana gun law puts the state at the forefront of a national bid to restore states' rights by attacking up to a century of federal court decisions on Washington's power.
Two other states - Alaska and Texas - have had favorable votes on laws similar to Montana's, declaring that guns that stay within the state are none of the feds' business. More than a dozen others are considering such laws, and more-general declarations of state sovereignty have been introduced this year in more than 30 legislatures.
The federal courts may not respond well to these laws in the short term, but backers who acknowledge this say that regardless, they intend for the laws to change the political landscape in the long term. They hope these state laws will undercut the legitimacy of contrary federal law - as has happened with medicinal marijuana - and even push federal courts to bend with the popular wind.
"What's going on is that people all over the country have decided, 'Enough is enough,' " said Kevin Gutzman, a professor at Western Connecticut State University and the author of "Who Killed the Constitution?" "This is supposed to be a federal system, but instead Congress seems to think it can legislate anything it wants." ...
... A few facts are useful to dispel some gun-control myths. The District already bans civilians from carrying guns in public places. Wednesday's shooter, James W. von Brunn, is a convicted felon who spent more than five years in prison for, among other charges, attempted armed kidnapping of federal officials. Because he was a felon, it would be illegal for him to own a gun even if ordinary law-abiding citizens could. Mr. von Brunn broke numerous laws in the course of his rampage. Current gun regulations didn't stop the attack, and neither would new ones.
The legacy of strict gun control is increased violence. Violent crime rose after the District's gun ban was imposed. ...
... Moyers mounts the tragedy as if it were a literary tree stand to blast pretty much every group or politician who is not taking action to curtail gun rights. Moyer's double barreled shotgun blasts reached far and wide, attacking President Obama, the Congress, and even Virginia's Democratic nominee for Governor Creigh Deeds because deeds is "a man who supports allowing concealed weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol and opposes limiting handgun purchases to one a month."
Let me digress on Moyers' effort to wing Mr. Deeds. First of all, as of today's repeal of Tennessee's ban on carrying guns in alcohol serving restaurants, only 9 states ban the carry of concealed handguns in alcohol serving restaurants. Second, only 2 other states besides Virginia (California and Maryland) ration handgun purchases at all, let alone to only one per month. And third, Mr. Deeds would seem an odd target for Mr. Moyers to take pot shots at - after all, gun owners in Virginia are upset at Mr. Deeds for selling them out last year and backing a ban on private gun sale rights at gun shows, a restriction largely unknown in America. ...
These are baffling times on the front lines of America's great culture wars. Half a dozen states have now approved gay marriage, the very mention of which is anathema to social conservatives. In contrast, another great cause of conservatives – to make abortion illegal – seems to be making headway. In May, Gallup found that more Americans considered themselves pro-life than pro-choice, the first time this has happened since the polling organisation began asking the question in 1995. But on the third major battlefield, there is no doubt. More than ever, guns are in. ...
While President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continuously blame America for the weapons in the hands of Mexican criminals -- guns they claim are smuggled from the US into Mexico, the US Border Patrol sent a report to the National Association of Chiefs of Police that paints a different picture:
Wednesday morning, US Border Patrol agents arrested a suspected robber on Otay Mountain, California. The suspect allegedly used an assault rifle to rob a group of illegal aliens.
At around 4 AM (pt), Border Patrol agents observed a group of suspected illegal aliens about four miles east of the Otay Mesa port of entry and nearly 100 yards north of the International border. Agents encountered five Mexican nationals and discovered an AK-47 assault rifle with two full magazines lying nearby.
Border Patrol agents were able to establish that the weapon belonged to a 17-year-old Mexican national who had just robbed the other members. Agents also determined that the bandit had an accomplice who ran back into Mexico armed with a handgun. ...
Marty Korecky likes to target shoot fairly regularly, but lately he's been cutting back.
A Shillington resident, Korecky is worried that if he uses up his ammunition, he'll have a really hard time getting more.
And he has reason to be concerned.
Demand for ammo — particularly for handguns and rifles — is so strong that retailers can barely keep it in stock, and some are even resorting to rationing. Prices are skyrocketing, too.
The start of the shortage can be traced back a few years, when military demand for ammunition was very high because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the election of President Barack Obama has apparently worsened the situation, with fear spreading among firearms owners that his administration will pursue gun control measures, including a new ban on assault rifles. Post-election gun sales also are booming for that reason. ...
... Derek Howald of Chillicothe has had his Utah permit for four years. It's reciprocal (that means it's a valid permit) in 29 other states.
In Illinois, it's worthless.
"It's sad," Howald said. "I think with the rich heritage of hunting and fishing, especially when you get to central and downstate ... you have very pro-Second Amendment people here."
The divisive statewide issue of concealed carry has gained a lot of attention in the Peoria area in recent weeks after Mayor Jim Ardis said he wants to see Peoria serve as a pilot city for some sort of responsible state law.
Ardis' comments came after a rash of shootings in Peoria, including one at an East Bluff gas station in which an attendant was shot and killed.
Ardis said he might approach state lawmakers in the near future to talk about possible sponsorship of state legislation that would allow Peoria to become a test city for concealed carry. He wants to gauge the public support for the idea to see if it's worth pursuing.
"I am hopeful but acknowledge that it will be a very difficult task," Ardis said. "Endorsements from local law enforcement and strong community support should provide additional weight to the Legislature."
Peoria serving as a test city for an Illinois concealed carry gun law is a unique idea and could potentially add another twist in the ongoing Chicago versus downstate debate on gun rights. ...
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