Snowflakes in Hell

Sorry for the light posting, but the Annual Meeting has been so busy, I haven’t had time.  I wasn’t really all that happy with the McCain speech.  I think he could have, well, really should have, hit this one out of the park.  McCain has a real problem with the base, and coming to speak to the NRA regulars, the die-hards, and saying you want to shut down private sales, is not a great way to endear yourself to them.  That’s not to say I’m not voting for him, because let’s face it, the choice is between getting hit by a bike, or getting hit by a dump truck.  I’ll join Kevin Baker’s McCain ‘08 Campaign.

We heard Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, speak at the NRA Banquet last night, and let me tell you, that guy is impressive.  Frank talk about what happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, and the efforts he took in Congress to make sure it never happened again.  Why couldn’t we have him instead of McCain?  Either way, Jindal probably needs to get an already impressive record in Louisiana further cemented, but if your political reputation can be that you cleaned up Louisiana, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish, including, probably, running for President.  If Jindall is what we have to look forward to in the Republican Party, I feel pretty good about the future.  Election ‘08 is going to be rough, but there is hope for the future.

I will be liveblogging the John McCain speech at the Celebration of American Values event at the NRA Annual Meeting.  Keep checking back.  This presumes that wireless holds up, and it’s been flakey.

3:00: Mitt Romney is speaking now.  Still waiting for McCain.

3:15: Now it’s Congressman Dan Boren, D-OK

4:15: Senator Mitch McConnell, R-KY

4:20: McCain comes in and starts his speech.  But we’re lined up for a photo op, up close.

4:30: McCain says he won’t support an assault weapons ban.  Says banning guns based on cosmetic features makes no sense.

4:35: McCain says he supports the banning private sales, and campaign finance reform

4:37: McCain says he doesn’t support regulating sales between people within the same family.

4:40: McCain says his support of regulating private sales doesn’t detract from his support of the second amendment.  Can’t say I agree with that one.

4:42: McCain reminds everyone that Obama wouldn’t sign onto the brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn the DC gun ban in Heller.

4:42: The theme seems to be “I suck a little, but my opponents suck more.”

4:43: McCain says that the framers knew exactly what they were doing when they drafted the constitution.

4:43: McCain stresses the importance of judges.  In my view, this is the main reason for voting for him.  He promises to nominate judges who will uphold the constitution, and not activist judges.

4:45: McCain is talking about differences between himself and Obama.  Interesting that he’s pretty much running against Obama.  At this point I think we just have to admit he’s the nominee.

4:46: McCain takes Obama to task for wanting to talk to our enemies instead of just kicking their asses.

4:48: McCain is going over the consequences of pulling out of Iraq.  Says “It would be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values.”

4:49: McCain says Petraeus has a plan, and it’s working, and things in Iraq are getting better.

4:51: McCain says he wants to bring our soldiers home too, but that he won’t ruin the sacrifice they have already made for this cause.

4:52: “I will defend her, and all her freedoms, so help me God”

That’s all folks.  I suck at liveblogging.  Off to drink like a fish with Michael Bane.

I’m blogging from the Celebration of American Values at the NRA Annual Meeting.  So far we’ve heard John Sigler, Chris Cox, Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo, Karl Rove, Ollie North, and currently Governor Mike Huckabee.  Mitt Romney created a bit of excitement among bloggers when he came into the media booth, but I was unable to get a picture because the batteries in my camera are dead.  We kind fo swarmed to get a picture.  I was worried first that the secret service guy hanging about was going to body slam a blogger, and additionally that I wouldn’t get a picture of it.

Tonight’s event is the NRA-ILA Mix and Mingle for the blog bash atendees.  This should be a fun event, and it looks like we have a few NRA board members coming.  I ran into Chris Cox earlier and he said he would try to make it out.  Emphasis on try. When Annual Meeting is on, these guys schedules can get nuttier than rush hour on the Tokyo subway, but I’m happy he’s going to try to make an effort to say hi to us.

Bitter and I have arrived in Louisville.  I can see the Brady Campaign is already making some hay out of McCain’s appearance.  I mean, with both Democratic candidates running away from their issue like roaches from the kitchen light, you’d think they wouldn’t be surprised to find John McCain moving away from it too.

The fact of the matter is, Brady Campaign, McCain needs us to win.  He knows that.  So we’re only happy to let him come here, and try to mend some fences.  Obama and Hillary like to say they are for the second amendment, but at the least McCain is willing to come into the lions den and try to make peace with the gun vote.  Will it work?  We’ll see in November, but looking at either Hillary or Obama’s record on gun rights gives him a pretty hefty head start.

Hope to see many of you there.  Just have to run home real quick to check on some things for my house sitter.  Posting will be nonexistent until we arrive.

Now they are freaking out about the National Park Rule Change.

Since the rule wouldn’t apply to every national park, the provision could also create confusion among the well-armed vacationing public.

Besides, what’s the point?

Federal parks already are some of the most crime-free settings in the nation. Introducing gun-slinging tourists into the mix isn’t going to improve safety.

I don’t even have the energy to refute this crap anymore.

Apparently politicians in Chicago are worried that people might be having entirely too much unregulated fun.  Clearly something must be done about this!

Well, that was my first national radio apperance.  Hopefully I did OK!  Anyway, for those of you looking for the post that was alluded to on the show, you can click here.  Tonight Bitter and I will be preparing to head to Louisville, and tomorrow we head out.  Posting might be light tomorrow.

UPDATE: Apparently John Popp got his Sebastians confused.

These pictures probably please me every bit as much as Dave Barry.

I’m hearing from the NRA that the Celebration of American Values event at the Annual Meeting on Friday, featuring John McCain, will not be allowing firearms.  This is a directive from the Secret Service, not from NRA or McCain’s campaign.  There will be a security checkpoint at the entrances to Hall A of the Kentucky Exposition Center, where the event will be held.  If you plan to attend this event, just be advised you will have to clear a security checkpoint.

The case SayUncle links to here rules that police can’t ask you for identification without a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.  I have a feeling this case, currently in the eighth circuit, might end up being useful in a case that’s developing here in Pennsylvania. Hopefully I’ll be able to post more about that later.

This time from Annette John-Hall.

As expected, the NRA continues to cling to the age-old argument that guns are the least of the problem.

“It’s the same song-and-dance out of Ramsey, focusing on the firearm and not at the root of the problem,” NRA spokesman John Hohenwarter said. “The problem is the revolving door of the courtroom and the lack of intervention for these kids who grow up to be criminals.”

But none of those things killed Liczbinski. A criminal armed with a body-armor-penetrating weapon did.

Ms. John-Hall, if you can read this post here, and tell me that one more gun law is going to matter, you’re either a fool, or worse.  Let’s stop pretending here.  The city isn’t even enforcing the laws we already have.  So why do we have them?  You should  be making the city politicians answer for this, not the NRA.

I’ll be making an appearance on Cam & Company tonight at the 9:20 segment to talk about the Second Amendment Blog Bash, happening as part of the NRA Annual Meeting in Louisville, KY later this week, and through the weekend.  I hope everyone can tune in.  You can catch Cam’s show on Sirius Patriot 144 from 9 to midnight, and on NRANews.com

The Arizona Rifleman.  I remember Heypete from when I used to spend time on LiveJournal’s guns community.  He always seemed like a sensible guy.

A comment to Bitter’s post yesterday about the problem in Burma:

Each recovery package contains rice, a water filter, an SKS, 100 rounds of ammo, and a map with directions to the capital.

Sounds good to me.  Also very much worth reading on the Burma issue, is a post at The Belmont Club.  As always with that blog, the comments are often as good as the post.

It never occured to me to steal my dad’s credit card and use it to buy prostitutes.  The best part of all this:

They told the suspicious working girls they were people of restricted growth working with a traveling circus, and as State law does not allow those with disabilities to be discriminated against they had no right to refuse them.

The $1,000 a night girls sensing something up played “Halo” on the Xbox with the kids, instead of selling their sexual services.

Ralph’s ambition is to one day become a politician.

I’d say he’s off to a great start.

David Codrea has an interview up.  If you’ll be in Louisville, David Young and David Hardy will be at booth number 1551 all three days.  Stop by and say hi.

Except to defend against double murderers.

… this is really funny.  As I’ve said, I plan to vote for the old bastard.  But that’s fun for the whole family right there.

VCDL responds to my earlier criticism about their open carry dinner.  As I said in the comments, if you can go out in public openly armed, and people just don’t pay attention, shouldn’t that be considered mission accomplished?  If the goal is to get concealed carry in restaurants, that will happen eventually, it just means waiting out Kaine.  It seems to me that potentially rubbing restaurant goers the wrong way by making a public announcement in a place where public announcements generally aren’t socially acceptable does more to undermine that cause than to promote it.

UPDATE: Countertop in the comments:

First, I understand that the owner pressured him to stand up and say something.  I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure - thats just what I heard.

Also, this was the culminating dinner - with full press attention (though really, I was hoping for the Washington Times or Post or something substantial) - with a whole crowd gathered.

Knowing these two fact, it strikes me that there might be more to this story and that, while certainly within the attention whore column, perhaps not as bad as if it was just another one of the VCDL dinners.

This would certainly be a mitigating circumstance.

Keyboard and a .45 talks about the growing momentum of HR1022.  What we’re seeing here is that the gun hating faction of the Democratic party growing bolder, as polls show that the 2008 election is likely to be a bloodbath for Republicans.  While the national candidates are stilll pretending to be gun shy, a lot of anti-gun Democrats are feeling brave enough to “come out,” so to speak.

If we don’t halt the Democratic momentum this fall, we’re looking at dark days for our gun rights ahead.

Ninth Stage commenting on my earlier post about interrupting dinner:

“I’m armed and so are dozens more here.”  Sounds like the opening line in a takeover robbery.   I’d be checking for a clear backstop in preparation for shooting the assclown before I heard another word.

Heh

Bruce talks about Satan’s Snowballs.  It’s good to hear that Massachusetts of all places is considering repealing their income tax.  Bitter has more on this.

Canadian authorities insist on pursuing charges against a man for defending his son from a grizzly bear attack.

“He was 16 yards away, actually, when I shot him. It’s not fun being attacked by a grizzly bear, that’s for sure.”

Lucas said he has fully co-operated with the investigation. He even rode by horseback three hours to his truck to charge his cellphone and call authorities about the death.

“They’re wanting me to become accountable for killing that bear,” he said. “I wonder who would be accountable if my son was dead or I was dead?”

You think the life of your kid means anything to government bureaucrats?  You’re dirt to them.  There’s a dead bear on their hands, and someone is going to pay.