Mark Steyn on God 'n' Guns

I really liked Mark Steyn's book, "America Alone," currently under attack as "hate speech" in Canada. This article in the OC Register proves that I'm not the only one with a sarcastic take on Fun With b-HO:

Sen. Obama's remarks about poor dumb, bitter rural losers "clinging to" guns and God certainly testify to the instinctive snobbery of a big segment of the political class. But we shouldn't let it go by merely deploring coastal condescension toward the knuckledraggers. No, what Michelle Malkin calls Crackerquiddick (quite rightly – it's more than just another dreary "-gate") is not just snobbish nor even merely wrongheaded. It's an attack on two of the critical advantages the United States holds over most of the rest of the Western world. In the other G7 developed nations, nobody clings to God 'n' guns. The guns got taken away, and the Europeans gave up on churchgoing once they embraced Big Government as the new religion.

How's that working out? Compared with America, France and Germany have been more or less economically stagnant for the past quarter-century, living permanently with unemployment rates significantly higher than in the United States.
Has it made them any less "bitter," as Obama characterizes those Pennsylvanian crackers? No. In my book "America Alone," just out in paperback and available in all good bookstores – you'll find it in Borders propping up the wonky rear leg of the display table for the smash new CD "Michelle Obama And The San Francisco Macchiato Chorus Sing "I Pinned My Pink Slip To The Gun Rack Of My Pick-Up,' 'My Dog Done Died, My Wife Jus' Left Me, And Michael Dukakis Is Strangely Reluctant To Run Again,' Plus 'I Swung By The Economic Development Zone Business Park But The Only Two Occupied Rental Units Were Both Evangelical Churches' And Other Embittered Appalachian Favorites."

Where was I? Oh, yes. In my book "America Alone," I note a global survey on optimism: 61 percent of Americans were optimistic about the future, 29 percent of the French, 15 percent of Germans. Take it from a foreigner: In my experience, Americans are the least "bitter" people in the developed world. Secular, gun-free big-government Europe doesn't seem to have done anything for people's happiness. Consider by way of example the words of Keith Reade. He's not an Obama speechwriter, he's a writer for the London Daily Mirror. And the day after the 2004 presidential election he expressed his frustration in an alarmingly Obamaesque way:

"Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets. The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', nonpassport ownin' rednecks, who believe God gave America the biggest d*** in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong.'"

Well, that's certainly why I supported Bush, but I'm not sure it entirely accounts for the other 62,039,073 incontinent rednecks. Reade, though, does usefully enumerate some of the distinctive features that separate America from the rest of the West. "Self-righteous"? If you want a public culture that reeks of indestructible faith in its own righteousness, try Europe – especially when they're talking about America: If you disagree with Eutopian wisdom, you must be an idiot.

Read the whole thing!

Happiness is Indeed a Warm Gun...

...and we can prove it! This in today's WSJ OpinionJournal from Arthur C. Brooks, author of the just-published book "Gross National Happiness:"

Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small nor downtrodden group.

Nor are they "bitter." In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were "very happy," while 9% were "not too happy." Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.

In 1996, gun owners spent about 15% less of their time than nonowners feeling "outraged at something somebody had done." It's easy enough in certain precincts to caricature armed Americans as an angry and miserable fringe group. But it just isn't true. The data say that the people in the approximately 40 million American households with guns are generally happier than those people in households that don't have guns.

The gun-owning happiness gap exists on both sides of the political aisle. Gun-owning Republicans are more likely than nonowning Republicans to be very happy (46% to 37%). Democrats with guns are slightly likelier than Democrats without guns to be very happy as well (32% to 29%). Similarly, holding income constant, one still finds that gun owners are happiest.

Why are gun owners so happy? One plausible reason is a sense of self-reliance, in terms of self-defense or even in terms of the ability to hunt their own dinner.

Self-reliance? What a novel idea, especially on today, Patriots Day. I am reminded of a woman jogger I knew back in Florida, who one day went out and bought a big honking dog about the size of an old Volkswagen Beetle. She took this monster jogging with her every morning, and one day at lunch she said to me, "I finally know how it must feel to be a man...free from this nagging fear!" I told her a J-frame would have accomplished the same thing, been cheaper to feed and, as a bonus, cut down on the World Poop Accumulation.


And speaking of books, I've been off-and-on reading my friend John Taffin's "Gun Digest Book of the .44," which is, as always the case with Taffin books, thoroughly enjoyable. As I've said many times, the .44 Special/.44 Magnum are the most versatile cartridges on earth, suitable for everything from ground squirrels to velociraptors. The only problem with the book is that I see things I want really badly, and I'm trying to keep the custom gun urge under control.


Mostly now I'm refining guns I'm using. For example, the slide of the ParaUSA Carry 9 I've been "auditioning" as my next concealed carry gun, just went to Dave Biggars at XS Sights — you saw him recently on SHOOTING GALLERY — for his Big Dot Tritium/White Stripe Rear treatment. Great sight system for a carry gun and more accurate than you might think at distance. BTW, if you go to that Para link, you can see me shooting a Carry 9...a big thrill, to be sure...

I've still got to address the holster issue for the Carry 9. I've been carrying it around in whatever fits from the Giant Holster Box in the Basement, never the best option. I've got queries out to Hoffman, Lou Alessi, Blade-Tech and Ted Blocker.

I did have a WONDERFUL package come in this week...from my friend Ritch Rand, author of "The Cowboy Hat Book," at Rand's Custom Hats. As you guys know, I have this Big Jones for cowboy hats and boots...I look and look and look, but I never actually buy anything. This drives my Sweetie just plain bonkers (heck, it even drives some blog readers bonkers...I periodically get email to the effect of, "JUST BUY THE DAMN HAT AND/OR BOOTS, FOR GOD"S SAKE!"). Heck, I'm a cowboy shooter, so I even have an excuse. Ritch, who builds cowboy hats for the rich and famous, has been after me to upgrade in the hat department since he noted — rather tactfully, actually — that my off-the-rack cowboy hat, well, sucked.

So in a moment of weakness, I ordered not one, but TWO hats from Rand's, a Tom Horn style 10X beaver in charcoal gray (left), and a great looking Sporting Clays (can't shoot 'em worth a damn, but, hey, style counts!) in a natural cream color, below (in gray).

I got a twisted horsehair hand on the Tom Horn, sort of the classic, with a stampede strap. The Sporting Clays come withs a pheasant feather, which I think makes me look rather dashing...or stupid, depending on your frame of reference.


Anyhow, the superb quality of Ritch's hats just shines through...the difference between an off-the-rack hat, even a good off the rack hat like the Serratelli Broken Bow I got from Tonto Rim Trading years ago as part of a COWBOYS first season show, and a custom hat is amazing. I'm still 100% faux cowboy — ALL HAT; NO COWS — but definitely higher quality in the hat department. Thanks, Ritch!

And YES...I did the right thing and IMMEDIATELY ordered my Sweetie the Rand hat of her choice...A Quigley II in basic black...sigh...women are so conservative!

Darn! Now I've got to address that BOOT ISSUE...that should be good for about two more years of fretting!

BTW, as long as we're on fashion, there's a thread on DOWN RANGE suggesting that this jersey from Primalwear would be the ultimate bicycling togs for Yours Truly...I'm thinking they're right:
Doesn't go with the cowboy hats, though...well, maybe...

Thank Allah It's Friday!

Am home — Home to Tara! — after two weeks of bouncing around the country like a demented pinball. The fun part was that i got to shoot a lot, from exotic full auto guns like the H-K MP7, a bunch of pistols, including about half the ParaUSA line of 1911s and slick sporting clays shotguns. Of course, I arrived home to...winter! Another six inches of now, screaming winds and cold...sigh.

I really really need to get to the range to do some videos on the last quarter's guns. I especially am looking forward to shooting the Magnaport Charter Arms Bulldog .44 (here's the American Handgunner article that got me thinking about the project; I opted not to get any of the finish options). I'll be putting some rounds through it on Sunday, then I want to spend a couple of days on the range next week shooting some new guns and tuning up for the Single Stack Classic.

And speaking of worthless, scurrilous gossip, I hear certain federal agencies are going through conniption fits with their 1911s, to the point of rebarrelling all of them. Ouchies!

In the meantime, a light bit from NRO's "Hollywood correspondent:"

Just because Barry attended a church for years without noticing that its pastor was a raving anti-American racist; refuses to demean himself by wearing a flag pin on his lapel; is up to his ears in the Tony Rezko mess; and thinks you yahoos are, well, yahoos is no reason for the media to question either his morals, his beliefs, or his patriotism. Isn’t it enough for him to just say he’s addressed all those issues, and to ask the media to tackle more substantive questions, such as how he’s going to bring hope and change not only to the United States but also to our European allies, fellow leftists such as Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi?

I'd also like to drop a note to the commenters who keep talking about "Fred-heads this" and "Fred-heads that" — Fred lost, and we now have to figure out what's best for the culture.

Every single problem we had with McCain is still there, but Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, represents a profound threat to the American way of life we cherish. He is a socialist who hails from the single most crooked political hellhole in this country, Cook County, IL, where it's okay to let some political shill buy half your house. He is the most antigun politician ever to run for the top office, and he's perfectly willing to say whatever lie is necessary to get him elected. He has to be defeated, and the only choice we have to defeat him is John McCain. So grow the hell up!

And don't forget...tomorrow is 19 April, maybe the most important anniversay in all of American history...I would bet money if you asked Obama what significance that date has, he couldn't tell you, because the America he desires is not the America we believe in.

Kopel on the Dem Follies

Nice piece from Dave in the WSJ this AM:

The Democrats and Gun Control
By DAVID KOPEL
April 17, 2008; Page A19

Imagine an election race of Pat Robertson versus James Dobson, each of them appearing at organic grocery stores and Starbucks throughout Massachusetts, with each candidate insisting that he alone deserves the vote of gay-marriage advocates. An equally silly spectacle is taking place these days in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama compete for the pro-gun vote.
[...]
However, having the right to arms and the liberty to hunt is worthless if you can't buy a gun. In 1999, Mr. Obama urged enactment of a federal law prohibiting the operation of any gun store within five miles of a school or park. This would eliminate gun stores from almost the entire inhabited portion of the United States.

As a state senate candidate in 1996, Mr. Obama endorsed a complete ban on all handguns in a questionnaire. The Obama campaign has claimed he "never saw or approved the questionnaire," and that an aide filled it out incorrectly. But a few weeks ago, Politico.com found an amended version of the questionnaire. It included material added in Mr. Obama's handwriting.
[...]
Yet, as Mr. Obama has mockingly pointed out, Mrs. Clinton is not exactly a modern-day Annie Oakley wiling away weekends in a duck blind. As first lady, she helped organize the Million Mom March for "sensible gun laws" in 2000. It was led by the shrill gun prohibitionist Rosie O'Donnell.

Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly voted for antigun proposals, and co-sponsored many of them. After Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans and St. Tammany police confiscated guns from law-abiding citizens, violating an explicit Louisiana law. In some cases, the confiscation was carried out with the assistance of federal agents, and was perpetrated via warrantless break-ins into homes.

The next year, the U.S. Senate voted 84-16 for a homeland security appropriations rider stating: "None of the funds appropriated by this Act shall be used for the seizure of a firearm based on the existence of a declaration or state of emergency." Mrs. Clinton was one of the 16 who voted "no." Mr. Obama commendably voted with the majority.

b-HO Reloads; Shoots Self in Privates

This from Kathleen Parker's superb column in NRO:

Obama has expressed regret that his words might have been offensive and artfully shifted focus to Clinton’s own pandering about learning to shoot a gun as a child.

“She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton’s out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday, (like) she’s packin’ a six-shooter.”

Fair enough. Annie got her gun and Obama got his boot stuck in his mouth. But God-fearing defenders of the Second Amendment — who are in their duck blinds packing shotguns, not six-shooters — know a decoy from the real thing.

If someone quacks like an elitist, he just might be one.

Spent a lot of time on the range today lobbing .45 ACP rounds and being embittered. I'm thinking six shooters on the ole duck blind sounds pretty cool! Then John Kerry and I can get our shotguns, get down on our hands and knees and sneak up on some deer!

Super Secret Para

...I finally got a chance to handle the non-firing proto and step through the specs of the long-rumored .45 ACP polymer-framed striker-fired Para...very impressive on first blush (and no...I was specifically prohibited from taking pictures)...each iteration of plastic pistols learns something from the last...

6:00 AM call and it's the middle of the night...sheesh...more later!

Still Bouncing...

...hither and yon, which explains the light blogging.

I'm getting ready to spend the day at Para, pondering 1911s. As you all know, I have a thing for hanging around gun factories — one of the things that has made me an embittered, small town pud-knocker, unable to embrace the audacity of hope. I'm hoping they let me in the R&D rooms to see what's new (and plastic),

I'll take JPEGS! Of course there'll be videos...

PS: From our daily updates of the Lady MacBeth/b-HO Death Match, this from Philly.com:

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is to announce in West Philadelphia today a crime-fighting plan that she boldly says will halve homicide rates in cities over five years.
[...]
* To renew the ban on assault weapons and repeal the Tiahrt amendment, which restricts federal authorities from sharing gun-trace information with local law enforcement.

I guess Lady MacBeth got bored with telling the embittered DNA-challenged backwoods extras-from-Deliverance little people (a.k.a., Americans) how she loveed the sweet feel of blued steel in one palm, the Gospel in the other. Nothing new here...just a reminder that, Hillapalooza or Obamarama, whichever circus comes to town, we lose!

Steel Challenge on Shooting Gallery

Premieres April 16, 2008 at 4:00PM & 8:00 PM Eastern

http://www.downrange.tv/shootinggallery/episode102.htm

b-HO Contiues to Shoot Self in Foot; Hillary Goes native

Just when you thought the Democratic campaign couldn't get any weirder, this from Lady MacBeth's fortified underground campaign bunker somewhere in heavily armed Pennsylvania country:

Clinton Portrays Herself as a Pro-Gun Churchgoer

I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration,” she said.

She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.”

Good Lord — Who is probably increasingly fed up with this crap...I wouldn't rule out lightning bolts — have these two swine no shame at all? Was Hillary packing when the Serbs...or was it the Croats...or maybe the Klan...tried to light her up on her peace mission? Or did she start carrying heat for fear of Another Intern Blow-Out (OUCH! Did I say that outloud?)?

In case you've been sleeping in a Pakistani cave with Osama, not to be confused with Obama, here's what Lady MacBeth thought about us sad-ass, bitter, gun-tottin' peckerwoods in 1999, courtesy of the New York Red Star...er, Times...wonder if she was packing heat when she wept, wept, for more gun control?

Hillary Clinton Appeals For Gun Control Lobbying

Stepping up the Clinton Administration's campaign against gun violence, Hillary Rodham Clinton used an emotional White House ceremony today to call on Americans to press Congress to ''buck the gun lobby'' and pass several gun control measures.
[...]
Mrs. Clinton was as careful as her husband has been to say that there are many causes of violence and that parents need to take responsibility for their children's behavior. But Mrs. Clinton, who is considering running for the Senate from New York, where gun control is popular, has also been more forceful than the President in directly taking on the powerful gun lobby in the aftermath of the Littleton killings.

Meanwhile, b-HO Himself is still reeling from inadvertantly speaking his true feelings while sucking up to rich white liberals in San Francisco. — e.g., that he holds us pathetic, gun-crazy, embittered, overly religious proles in Flyover Country in the utmost comtempt.

He's spinning like that Class 5 storm in Twister, and he just keeps digging his grave deeper and deeper. The problem is, he does actually hate us. This from Michael Young at Reason Online:

While Obama is indeed engaging in spin, there is a far more disturbing aspect to his interpretation. He misses the essential nature of modern culture. People don't end up focusing on issues like the right to bear arms, gay marriage, faith-based and family-based issues, and the like, because of bitterness against Washington or a sense that they can't effect change there. People focus on these issues because modern American political culture is, effectively, about subcultures, variety, pursuing parochial aims, and shaping one's identity and personal agendas independently of the state.

What Obama implicitly regards (in both his statements) as signs of disintegration, as reflections of popular frustration, are in fact examples of a thriving culture...Yet Obama's approach betrays a very suffocating vision of the state as the be-all and end-all of political-cultural behavior. Outside the confines of the state there is no salvation, only resentment. This is nonsense, but it also partly explains why Obama is so admired among educated liberals, who still view the state as the main medium of American providence.

That's right...apparently Mister Obama is puzzled by anyone who doesn't drink the G's Kool-Aide. Even the mainstream commentary is starting to notice that we in the gun culture, disgusted by how stupid the Democrats apparently think we are, are rising up. This from Politico:

For purposes of firing up a specific constituency, Obama's "bitter" comments may ultimately be most damaging for the general in terms of what they do for gun owners and sportsmen.
[...]
Beyond his "cling to" assessment, there is also a campaign questionnaire from a '96 state Senate race where Obama indicated support for outlawing all handguns (he denies holding having held this view and his campaign says that the document was filled out by a staffer who mischaracterized the candidate's views)

And, unlike Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry, he's not a hunter and has he ever been one. It might have seem contrived, but every recent Democratic presidential nominee could talk of handling a gun and tell tales of shooting birds.

McCain hasn't always been an NRA favorite (see reform, campaign finance) but the gun rights group could have an opponent in this race who, for energizing their members, more than makes up for their preferred candidate's shortcomings.

Obviously, the Democratic race is going to be decided by who has the longer nose, but let's make no mistake about one thing: Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want with every core of their beings to take our guns, and if either is elected, they will stop at nothing to strip us of our Second Amendment rights. Believe it!

What the Obamarama REALLY Thinks of US!

From the man — and I use that term loosely — who wants to be President:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns [emphasis mine] or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Read what Jonathan Martin at Politico has to say here. Hey b-HO, we'll be clinging to those guns until they pry them from our cold dead hands, too!

Gun Mon

Cute, huh? "Gun Mon...day." Get it? Okay, never mind...I'm tired. Besides, it's Tuesday, but I'm a day behind.

I thought I might actually talk a little about, you know, guns today. I got to spend some time at the range with a suppressed H-K MP7 in 4.6 X 30 buzzgun, courtesy of Long Mountain Outfitters and Fiocchi, who makes the ammo. It shoots like, well, a .22 submachinegun might...in fact, I kept wanted to overcompensate to keep the front end from rising, except that the front end didn't rise to speak of. It just buzzed away, the H-K suppressor doing a pretty good job of keeping the sound throttled down.

The whole Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) thing is pretty interesting...a sort of sub-sub gun that fills a role between handgun and an assault weapon. The uber-PDW, of course, is the FNH P90, another little buzzgun that shoots like, well, another .22 submachinegun (and available in semiauto civilian garb).

The whole issue on the little monsters revolves around whether their specialty cartridges — the 5.7 X 28 in the P90, the 4.6 X 30 in the H-K — will deliver the mail in a law enforcement or a civilian context...these cartridges are already proven quantities in military arena. But what you need in a military arena is not necessarily what Bob SWAT Guy, or you and I need. I have mixed feelings..I've talked to end users for both cartridges who were wildly enthusiastic on the terminal ballistics....but in every case the users had access to ammunition that you and I can't have and multiple hits were involved. A dozen of either of these little guys will certainly dent your mellow.

My problem is I have a nagging sense that ballistics may be ballistics...we're talking roughly 40 grain bullets at 2200-2400 fps...hummmmm...now where have I heard those numbers before? Maybe the .22 Hornet (46 grain at 2600-2800 fps)? Not known as a definitive manstopper.Yes, we're talking trick bullet design, something I've very fond of in handgun cartridges, but still...

From a civilian standpoint, I'd have to say the jury is still out. If any of the specialty cartridges gains a bit of a widespready following, we'll see a lot of ammo development in the civilian arena...then I'll change to an ultralight plastic pistol with about a billion rounds in each magazine...I'll get it in a designer color, too!

I also put several boxes of 9mm frangible ammo through a production line Sig Sauer P250. I think I'm going to stand by my original thoughts on the pistol...it does feel a lot like the P225, a gun I'm very familiar with, in my hand. The long DA trigger is still slick — smooth, but with more stacking at the end of trigger stroke than with the protos I shot at the factory. It is not a hard trigger to get used to, though it could benefit hugely from a shorter reset...for revolver shooters, that long DA stroke is baseline normal. As I said, I've heard mucho rumors that the 25os are not flying off the shelves, probably a function of the viciously competitive plastic pistol market that I guarantee will get even more competitive as we move through this election year.

bHo's Gun Dance

Interesting article from Robert Novak on "Obama's Gun Dance:"

Barack Obama, who informs campaign audiences that he taught constitutional law for 10 years, might be expected to weigh in on the historic Second Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices are pondering whether the 1976 District of Columbia law effectively prohibiting personal gun ownership in the nation's capital is constitutional. But Sen. Obama has not stated his position.

Obama, disagreeing with the D.C. government and gun control advocates, declares the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear arms" applies to individuals, not just the "well-regulated militia" cited in the amendment. In the next breath, he asserts this constitutional guarantee does not preclude local "common sense" restrictions on firearms. Does the Draconian prohibition for Washington, D.C., fit that description? My attempts to get an answer have proved unavailing. The front-running Democratic presidential candidate is doing the gun dance.

Charlton Heston on Guns

Charlton Heston, 1923-2008

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

— Man of La Mancha

Rest in Valhalla, Mr. Heston.

Interesting NYT Piece on Survivalism

In the Fashion & Style Section, no less:

THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.

It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.

Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.

More on BHusseinO's Views on Guns

A little more on what BHusseinO has planned for us should he win the Presidency. This from Bob Owens at Pajamas Media:

As noted in a previous article for Pajamas Media from February 22, Obama said in the 1998 Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test that he favored a ban on the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons. Semi-automatic weapons are those firearms that are self-loading. They fire once per trigger pull, and use the energy generated by the firing cartridge to eject the empty casing and load the next round. They are not to be confused with fully-automatic weapons — most commonly called machine guns — used by the military and some elite police units, which will fire for as long as the trigger is depressed and the firearm has ammunition.

The semi-automatic firearms Barack Obama would like to see banned include rifles and shotguns commonly used for defense, hunting, and many forms of target shooting. This counters his campaign web site, where Obama claims to respect the Second Amendment. Cleverly worded as befitting a lawyer, Obama’s one-paragraph statement says he respects the rights of hunters. The right of using a firearm in self-defense or the defense of others appears nowhere in his statement.

Obama's Cindy Lauper Moment on Guns

But I see your true colors
shining through...
— Cindy Lauper
"True Colors"

Well, someone finally got Barack — what was that middle name again? — Obama to actually comment on guns...I guess his minders were out to lunch, or maybe out scouring the local Pennsylvania bookstores for a copy of Das Kapital so the candidate can refresh his economic positions.. You're probably not going to be surprised at his gun positions, either. This from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this week, through Alphecca:

Candidates' gun control positions may figure in Pa. vote

Clinton and Obama favor some kind of ban on assault weapons, something McCain opposes.

"I ... think we should reinstate the assault weapons ban (that expired in 2004) in order to give our police officers a fighting chance against the criminals on the street with these military-style assault weapons," Clinton said Tuesday.

All three candidates oppose creating a national handgun registry.

Rather than create a national registry, "I do think we have to do a better job sharing information between local and federal officials," Obama said yesterday. He differs with McCain and Clinton about whether people should be allowed to carry concealed guns. Clinton and McCain oppose outlawing it.

"I am not in favor of concealed weapons," Obama said. "I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations."

What a moron, but what can you expect from Richie Rich from Chicago...no guns, but "friends" who'll buyt half your house!

LIVE BLOG EVENT!

FRIDAY

9:00 PM EDT

WWW.DOWNRANGE.TV!!!

This'll be Big Fun...really!

Had a great filming day today...I think you'll like the show on lasers...I wanted to focus on techniques where lasers worked. This is the first time I've worked with Wes Doss of Khyber Interactive Associates and Crimson Trace's training division. Excellent instructor! he's running the 1-inch to 100 yard training seminars in May in Nevada...check out their list of seminars!

BTW, a bunch of us ran a lot of rounds through the Ruger LCP .380...everybody was blown away by the little gun.

BTWBTW, I chose to shoot a Glock 19 today...I hope that doesn't mean I'm going to hell!

Sorry for Light Blogging!

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Memo to Jeremiah Wright...