Thursday, March 28, 2013

Cold Dead Hand with Jim Carrey ... WHO CARES?

Cold Dead Hand with Jim Carrey from Jim Carrey, NickCorirossi, Charles Ingram, Funny Or Die, BoTown Sound, millsfx, and Melissa Gould McNeely

Conservative Bloggers and Pundits are getting pretty darned worked up by the latest Jim Carrey video, which  satarizes  Charlton Heston.   I'm not sure why.

I know why Carrey said all this stuff, and why he "attacked" Charlton Heston (my personal hero) .. it's his job.  He's not always very good at it (witness: "Ace Ventura" and "The Cable Guy"), but that's the job he has chosen.

If Charlton Heston can can ignore the egregious Michael Moore, he can ignore Jim Carrey .. who (wisely, I think) waited until Heston was dead before he satirized him.

Still, even if Carrey pokes fun at our Second Amendment rights, we should allow him his First Amendment rights.  Oh, we can make fun of him in turn, but ... what's the problem?

I know, I know ... "your rights end when your fist meets my nose".   To mix a metaphor, my nose is only a bit "out of joint".  I don't LIKE what he has to say, and I may condemn it .. but that's what the First Amendment is all about: the right to "unpopular speech".  After all, the Second Amendment was included to support the First Amendment .. and all the other Constitutional Amendments which may from time to time give us pause.




"I  may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it!"
 (Voltaire)


We can still learn, even from the Odious French.

So .. Conservative Bloggers and Pundits ... give it a rest, eh?.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

"I'm Denny Crane"

Catch 22
or
You will NOT be assimilated until we figure out what we're talking about!


Cuomo’s 7-Bullet Limit Suspended Indefinitely in NY Gun Law Debacle:

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s seven-round limit on magazines sold in New York will be suspended “indefinitely” by a measure in his $136.5 billion budget set to be passed this week, Dean Skelos, a Senate majority leader said. The ban on magazines holding more than seven bullets was set to start April 15. Cuomo has said the law needs to be rolled back because manufacturers don’t make seven-round holders. The measure was a center piece to a gun law the 55-year-old Democratic governor pushed through the legislature in January, making New York the first state to respond with tougher gun regulations to the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre.
(We might ALSO have titled this is:  "It depends on what the meaning of 'IS', is!")

We couldn't make this up.  It took a while, but Mayor Bloomber's sock-monky A. Cuomo has finally realized that he has reached his (Star Treck reference, forgive me) "Norman, Please Coordinate" moment!

Andy Capped the 'permissible' firearms magazine capacity at seven (7) rounds, but later learned ... who knew? ... that nobody makes 7-round magazines any more.

This would effectively make ALL(most) magazine-fed weapons (and all magazines) illegal in the state of New York.

Not that  Cuomo and Bloomberg wouldn't be delighted by that providential outcome, but even these Useful Idiots were advised that this was tantamount to a violation of the Second Amendment.  You know ... the troublesome one?

(Note: I was unable to find a current link to the"Troublesome Second Amendment", which is regretable .. so I here offer an decidedly different link to the "PESKY" Second Amendment.  Not the same thing at all.  I will continue my search to the liberal profesor who changed his mind when he actually READ the constitution.  end note.)

It's hard to tell where the limit of acceptable outrageousness lies, when we're talking about career politicians (is there any other kind?), but apparently there are occasional competent staffers even in the Governator's Office who take seriously their job to keep their boss from looking as ignorant as they really are.  Unfortunately, sometimes they aren't consulted until said idiocy evinces itself in public statements.  Well, if Cuomo hadn't sacrificed his testicular masculinity to the god of party politics, perhaps he wouldn't have found himself in this embarassing juncture (which politicians say instead of "I'm An Idiot"!).

Not that we're reluctant to point out his lapses in logic.  As publically as possible, please.

Thank you.

THE POINT?

Actually, this sounds like the dream you have from time to time, where you find yourself in a public place and discover that you have no pants on.   ( I think that "Boston Legal" started their first season with exactly that scenario .. and the Corporate Partner in question didn't consider it embarassing at all.  So perhaps Cuomo might be considerd to be more self-aware than Larry Miller's"Edwin Poole" Character.)

Or .. Denny Crane.



Cuomo must have had an agenda in mind, but one doubts whether it was to look like an idiot in the press.  He must have a firm muzzle on the MSM, though, if this is the worst that can be said about him.

So  (ho-hum) Andy got it wrong, he didn't make an effort to determine the economic ... nay, the physical impossibility of what he was asking from his constituents, and it bit him in the ass.

This illustrates the contretemps which often arise when Idiots, or Democrats (but then, I repeat myself) attempt to enter legislation which restrict civil rights about which they know absolutely NOTHING.  One is naturally inclined to blame this on substandard staffing .. but actually, the problem is not with the staffing (after all, they let him know that he was being an IDIOT).

The problem is with the political election process.  We tend to elect people who tell us what we want to hear, not people who know what they are talking about.

Have, the people who comprise the electorate of New York State have been revealed to be insufficiently astute to keep an idiot out of office?  Well, we as a nation elected Obama, so I guess we can only point the finger at our two political parties ... neither one of which can field a rational (let alone responsible) candidate.

eg: Obama vs Romney.  The country voted for the devil they knew, if only because Romney was an incompetent politician and a poor candidate.

Maybe next time one of the two dominant political parties will find someone who is not so easily confused.  I don't expect it .. but I do have high hopes.

I leave you with these few words:  William Shatner For President!
(At least we would have someone who we knew something about before we voted for him .. however reluctantly!)



NJ to probe state response in boy-with-gun photo

NJ to probe state response in boy-with-gun photo | General Headlines | Comcast:

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Gov. Chris Christie has asked his attorney general to investigate the state's visit to the home of a man who had posted online a photo of his son holding a military-style rifle, saying news reports raised "troubling questions" about how the case was handled. The state's child welfare agency and local police went to the Carneys Point home of Shawn Moore on March 14, following what police say were anonymous calls expressing concern about the safety of a child. Moore has said he believes he was investigated solely because of the photo he shared online of his son, Josh, holding the gun he got for his 11th birthday. The weapon was a .22-caliber rifle made to look like an assault weapon. He says caseworkers were aggressive and the visit unwarranted. No charges were filed.

This is actually a follow-up on a report from Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority.  Baker titled his March 20, 2013 piece "When Dealing With Guns, The Citizen Acts At His Peril", because it is in direct contrast to a 2003 New Jersey situation where a NJ citizen was imprisoned for simple posession of a .22 caliber rifle, which was apparently discovered in similar circumstances. (Details on the 1996 Joseph Pelleteri case are linked in the above article.)

Quick summary:  Moore posted his kids picture on a social website.  "Anonymous calls" (how many?) to the welfare department caused welfare busybodys to grab a cop or two when they called on the Moore home.  The cops wanted to see his guns.  Moore said no.  Cops wanted to see how his guns were stored.  Moore said no.  The cops asked if they could come in.  When he learned that they didn't have a search warrant, Moore said no.  Thank you sir, have a nice day ... and the cops never came back.

You can see from the photo which started the whole magillicutty that the cherubic-faced boy isn't doing anything wrong.  Well, but he's wearing a camo-patterened coat, and the gun is black, and it's got this EVIL big magazine.  No wonder all of those Nervous Nellys called the guvmint to report what must have seemed a terrorist in training!

LOOKISM?

Look, it's a kid.  And the gun is a .22.  And it's legal.  And it doesn't "Spray 'N Prey" (sic).

It's just a kid with a plinker.   I've been shooting plinkers like that (only in brown, not black; and with a 10-round tube magazine instead of a how-many-I-don't-know inserted magazine) since I was a lot younger than this youngster.

Oh, wait!  Back up to the Pelleieri case ... his .22 rifle was brown, not black; and it had a tubular magazine, too.   I guess when people think that "All Guns Are Evil" and "Guns Are Only Good For Killing People", then the details, merely add more fuel to the book-burning fires.

Yeah; Baker has a link to THAT quandry, too, in his Pelleteri piece.  The gun looks nothing like the one that Moore bought his son, but consider this:

When you are The Guvmint, the term "Assault Rifle" means whatever you say it means, regardless of the commonly held military definition, which includes:

  • Military weapon (whatever that means)
  • Intermediate or rifle-caliber
  • stocked
  • External (removable) magazine
  • Selective fire (both semi-automatic and fully automatic)
  • capable of having a bayonette attached

New Jersey, though, has a much simpler definition:

  • semi-automatic
  • capable of holding 10 rounds
(Well, that's "Assault Weapon", not "Assault Rifle";  they don't care if it's a stocked rifle, because the term "ASSAULT" doesn't mean what they taught me in the Army.)


________________________________________________________

BUY IT YESTERDAY, BAN IT TODAY,  GET 10 YEARS TOMORROW

This discussion wouldn't be complete without at least one reference from the Main Stream Media.

Perhaps Scott Bach, columnist (blogger) for the New Jersey Times (NJ.com) would not be considered "MSM" by everybody, but for the purposes of this discussion ....  hey, he's published

In his March 09, 2008 (!) article, Bach includes the following:


If you buy a lawful product that is later banned, should you go to jail for 10 years, even though you didn't know it was banned, and the government that banned it now criminalizes any method to dispose of it?
In the world of gun ban extremist Bryan Miller of CeaseFire NJ, [link added for convenience ... geek] the answer to this question is yes.
Miller sees no distinction between violent criminals with guns (who should go to jail) and otherwise law-abiding citizens who were turned into "criminals" by the State with the stroke of a pen, when New Jersey banned an entire class of commonly owned semi-automatic firearms in the 1990s with no grandfather provision, no attempt to notify licensed gun owners, and a short time window within which to legally dispose of, disable, or register the banned guns.
At a March 6 legislative hearing on S1304, which would increase the penalty for possession of such firearms to a potential 10-year prison term, I argued that the higher penalty should apply to violent criminals with guns, but that otherwise law abiding citizens who had purchased the guns when it was legal to do so, who may not know they are banned due to the law's judicially acknowledged vagueness, who are not involved in criminal activity, and who presently have no legal means to comply with the law, should not be facing 10 years in prison.
In my testimony, I quoted a Court's judicial opinion finding that the gun ban's vague and confusing language made it impossible to know with certainty whether some firearms are covered by the ban. I cited another case in which an otherwise law-abiding citizen was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to a prison term under the current penalty merely for possessing a common .22 caliber target gun he had legally purchased prior to the ban.

Sound familiar?

[NOTE: Both the "my testimony" and "another case" links are unavailable: the first is 'broken', the second is 'protected' (requires login).]  My guess is he is referring to the Peleteri case.

Miller's link, however, is still active as of this date.  I encourage you to read it, if only to understand the mindset behind it.  Miller believes the law .. which makes felons of people who owned statuatorily 'banned' guns for simple possession ... to be fully justified in all its ramifications.

What that means is, this comes down to a conflict between the U.S. Constitution (2nd Amendment) and "States Rights".

Constitution:  "... Shall not be infringed ..."
Heller Decision: "... the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that weapon for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Moreover, this right applies not just to the federal government, but to states and municipalities as well.
New Jersey: ""[a] semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine capacity exceeding [fifteen] rounds."

Ultimately, CONGRESS did not make this law.  New Jersey did.  And while Heller applied to whether or not an individual could legally keep a handgun in the home, it did NOT address the question of what specific types of firearms could be restricted from ANY ownership.

My advise, if you live in New Jersey ... move.  Now!   That law is constitutional until the Supreme Court decides it is not.

ON THE OTHER HAND ....
... now that Obama has finally and definitively identified himself as a Hoplophobe, and is STRONGLY  threatening to impose draconian "Gun Control" laws on a national level, my best advise at this time is:

"Don't sell your Confederate Money, Boys!"