Our day at the range

It isn't that Ken and I had nothing else to do, It just seemed like a good idea to take the battered RST4 down to pond and make something dance a little.

About 60 rounds of cheap Winchester bulk pack (one FTF) at 30 feet or so. Some from a rest on the Rusty Red, the F150, but mostly fast and off hand in a Weaverish way.

I can think of worse ways to pass a little time, even though I recently read an expert who said serious shooters should never "plink." Get lost.

Texas Good Guys

Why don't  y'all turn your head toward Klleen, Texas, down there by the gate to Fort Hood in the flat middle of Lone Star? Flip a little salute toward the local junk yard, CenTex Scrap and Metal.

The owner has decided on  an act of public service. He'll pay for the CCW course for his employees who want a carry permit.

---

One problem.The teevee  station  doesn't even mention that the CenTex policy  will lead to more crazed cowboys packing heat, ridin' in on Sattiday night, gettin' all boozie,  shootin' up the town, and skeerin' the womenfolk.

Somebody ought to caution KWTX that one more error like that and Mr. Obama' s FCC is probably gonna jerk your license.

Iowa Stand-Your-Ground Bill

The text of the bill as passed by the house last evening is here. 

It goes to the senate. I can't offer a confident prophecy on its chances there. Comments in the previous Constitutional amendment note also apply here.

---

The best argument the opponents could dream up seems to be that we're turning gentle,  agrarian Iowa into the "Wild, Wild West."

That's nonsense. But even if it were true, so what?

Wander though the Boot Hills of Deadwood, Tombstone and the like and two things will stand out. (1) They're pretty small places. (2)  In even the toughest towns of frontier legend, moving to the local grave yard courtesy of  a gunslinger's bullet was a remote danger compared to,  say, the fatal results of untreated acne.

The point being, Ladies and Gentlemen of the statist left,  Clint Eastwood westerns are tales written to entertain, not exhaustively researched narratives of the norm in the 19th Century American West.

Iowa Gun Rights Constitutional Amendment

The language finally approved is here.  It would arguably affirm the strongest self-defense rights in the country.

Procedure: An Iowa Constitutional Amendment must be approved by both house and senate in two sessions separated by an election, i.e., two "General Assemblies" in our jargon. Then it must be approved by voters. The next step for this one is the senate where Democrats control things this year. Next is passage -- in identical form --  in the 2013 or 2014 session.

O. Kay Henderson, news director of Radio Iowa and a savvy reporter, says senate passage is unlikely. That may be slightly strong. Two years ago the conventional wisdom ruled out passage of shall-issue because of a Democrat senate and governor. But that was also an election year, and anti-gun lawmakers took a second look at citizen sentiment. They had a sudden epiphany revealing that shall-issue was a very statesmanlike policy indeed.   We'll see.

Iowa's Own RKBA Amendment and UPDATE: SYG approved

The house debated and passed (60-38) the amendment before getting to the SYG bill. It's just a first step, and the earliest it could go to the electorate for ratification would be 2013.

The operative text is:"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed ." 


The absence of the supposedly qualifying phrase in the federal Constitution stands out, doesn't it?  Go Hawks! :)

There's more wordage, but it's stictly procedural.

---

Timing of the stand-your-ground action isn't clear yet.

---

EDIT:

SYG just passed.

And I've just learned there are dueling sources on the content of the constitutional amendment. The Des Moines Register now says:

Under a tweak to the amendment’s language approved during the debate this evening, it now bars the state from infringing or denying a person’s right to “acquire, keep, possess, transport, carry, transfer, and use arms” and would prohibit firearm licensing, registration or special taxation in addition to echoing the language of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.


It should all be sorted out by morning. See you then. Tired of damn near live-blogging this.











-

Blog Birthday

You might want to slip over to Kead's place and wish his graceful blog a happy birthday. If you do you'll also be treated to a nice little piece of vintage gun porn.

(Kead's also goes on theTMR blog list with my apologies for not putting it there much sooner.)

Loophole AAR (or) I chickened out

My God How the Money Rolled in. Quite a lot of my junk found new homes. Same with the dealer leftovers I was liquidating.

And I recall promising if the junk moved as well Sunday as it did Saturday, I would buy something deadly enough to make Boxer -Pelosi hearts go glurg.

The vision materialized late in the loophole when a dealer friend offered me an outstanding deal on two pretty old Browning Nomads. I thought about the new Bernanke/Obama/Geithner cartoons in the mad-money fund, sighed, thought about a family opportunity, and concluded, "Naahhh."  Could the end of my adolescence be drawing nigh?

---

The manner in which the dealer junk moved interested me. Young guys bought the bubble-packed accessories -- tactical scope covers, P85 magazines,  anything painted camo, almost any macho thing you can plug-and-play.

Graybeards -- guys who obviously knew how to read a mike, which end of the screwdriver to hold, and what actually makes a cartridge go bang -- bought the swivel sets, odd reloading gear, and scope mounts.  There were only a few of the latter, and that makes me a little sad. It sort of confirms my feeling that the  country is becoming wanna-buy instead of can-do.

---

it's hard to say enough about how well the Emmett County Ike Walton league runs this little show.  For one small instance: when I checked in Friday afternoon, the Ike-in-charge made sure the table location was satisfactory; he was willing to move things around to make sure we were happy. Then, about four of his club partners traipsed out to the truck and carried in most of my gear for me. I don't recall that ever happening before, and this is a public thank-you to them.

Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground

A House committee this afternoon approved House File 573.  Oversimplified, it embraces the sensible notion that your right to defend yourself against violence is well-nigh universal and that you have no legal duty to retreat from threat, in your home or on the streets.

I like to think of it as putting the fear of God into violent criminals, one thug at a time, any time, anywhere.

The antis will resume their snide characterization of a "shoot your neighbor law."

That is their understanding of reasoned discourse, and they will not admit to being persuaded that (a) little, if any, additional gun play will occur as a result of HF573 and (b )the value of the policy is in making thugs think twice before they sneak into your bedroom or grab your wife's purse (or something) as you stroll home from the movies.

---

The politics of the thing is iffy. Conventional wisdom has it passing the GOP-controlled house but faltering in a Senate laden with Democrats and some Republican metrocons.

While that may be a smart-money bet this early in the legislative goat rope, it's also the same conventional thinking that was dead wrong on shall-issue in 2010. Liberals that year eyeballed an upcoming election and scurried to the camp of most Iowa voters, a peaceable lot who really hate shooting other folks but reserve the right to do so when there's no time to summon a cop or even a government-trained crisis counsellor.

Land of the Hoosier Hip --Occupy It

In Indianapolis exists a neighborhood called Broad Ripple. It is a Hoosier iteration of classic hip scenes of other cities (Old Town Chicago in the 60s; Greenwich Village in the 50s, etc.). People, mostly young, go there for eating, drinking, meeting, and a sense of  the pleasant side of urban living.

This creates an attraction for the other side of city life, the rapist, the mugger, the robber. No surprise. The underbelly parasites are always attracted to money and other-sex comeliness.  They have made looking for love, or arugula, or whatever, a somewhat hazardous thing to do in Broad Ripple after sundown.

In reaction, a movement has sprung up to "Occupy Broad Ripple with Guns." It's more benign than it sounds. Adult people are to quietly stroll the nightlife area this Saturday night, carrying openly and legally.

There seems to be a dual intent. (1) Remind the thugs that they do not own the streets, even when Officer Friendly is absent and (2) spread the word to revelers how they, too, may bear arms for effective self-defense by jumping through a few regulatory hoops.

I am decidedly wishy-washy about public demonstrations of any kind, and even more firmly ambivalent about open-carry events. But at the very worst, OBR seems like something that should do no harm and may do some good.  The mugging class  tends to prefer swimming in a pool of docile, surprised, and unarmed victims, and it's always good to dissuade them about your neighborhood. So have at it, Hoosiers. If I were there I'd probably join you.

---

Roberta has a good little essay on the matter, including a riff on the predicable outcry of the ubermeek that Broad Ripple is about to be taken over by gun-slinging skinhead racists. She's taken care of that nonsense. There's no need for repetition here, but it  did give me an idea.

I've always appreciated a retort to the soaked-Pamper Left whose idea of rational discussion is to shout "Nazi!" at libertarian thinkers, particularly armed ones. "We're not the Nazis, Binky. We're the guys hiding the Jews."

That thought occurs just as much of America prepares to storm the big boxes in search of cheap but neat Christmas gifts.

An alternative worth thought?

There is an organization known as Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.  You need not be Jewish to belong. So if you're stumped for something for Mr./Ms. Hard-to-Buy-For, how about a gift JFPO membership?  At $25 it's cheap enough, and it lasts a whole year which the gizmo from WalMart probably won't.

Libertarian gun love

I've been to dozens of political conventions, but never one with this in the announcement:

 "If you carry and need to use the restroom, a gun wrangler will be designated."




It makes me think of  shining up the 59 and actually attending this one,  May 7 at the Hilton Garden Inn, just north of Des Moines.  


Last time I hit a convention I decided I even needed to leave the little Buck pocket knife in the hotel room.


Gotta love libertarians, even big-L ones.


Click the link for  more details, and for some recent news of Ron Paul.

Arm the Iowa Hawkeyes

A Fort Madison Democrat by the name of Gene Fraise is the new chairman of the Iowa Senate Judiciary Committee. Among other things,  this means he's the crisp-suited critter who can pretty much decide what public safety matters the other 49 senators can and can not vote on.

One proposal would amend the state Constitution to recognize the right to  use arms for  personal defense and, perhaps, depending on final wording, defense of your property.

Senator Fraise finds this chilling.  "I've always felt like we've got to be real careful about what we start sticking into the constitution," he said.

Danged straight, Senator. For instance, sticking all that stuff about freedom of speech and privacy rights and what-all into constitutions has caused all sorts of inconvenience for senators and presidents and so forth. It makes the proles uppity.

---

Adding a 2A style amendment to the Iowa Constitution is part of the liberty wish list for the 2011 session. The askings include a move to adopt the Alaska/Arizona/Vermont philosophy. (By what right does a state have any business whatsoever hamstringing a right guaranteed by the federal Constitution?) 


Never mind, says Senator Fraise. "At first blush, I'd say I don't think we want to go down that road, but I'm open to looking at it, with reservations."  Translation:  "Not a  prayer, John Q.  Any such thing gets lost  in my blushing drawers."

Another proposal would forbid cities  to water down Iowa's new shall-issue law by restricting concealed or open carry in parks and public buildings. That gets city commissars nervous. For instance, Keokuk Police Chief Thomas Crew said "the last thing his city needs is irritable people openly carrying weapons when paying their parking tickets or handling other city business."

May I make a constructive suggestion, here, Chief? Thank you. Stop doing so much petty crap that tends to make so many of your subjects irritable.

---

It's early in the lawmaking circus, so I of course have no idea how all this will end. But the GOP -- pretty libertarian on gun rights, if on little else -- recaptured the house, 60-40, and closed the senate Democrats gap to 24-26.

And Republicans in the upper house are led by a fellow whose sentiments are not in doubt.

"Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton", ... bought his wife a .38-caliber gun for their wedding anniversary.

Proving the case for shall-issue laws:

In a county near me the sheriff just loved a citizen named Paul Dorr  as long as Paul was spending his idle time protesting abortion clinics. In those days, Sheriff Douglas Weber gave Mr. Dorr his CCW every year. No problem.

But then  Mr. Dorr joined a group questioning  county spending and suddenly Weber decided  Mr. Door  had lost all of those qualities of intelligence, judgment, discretion, etc. that made him such a good CCW risk in the past,


Enter  U.S. District Court Judge Mark Bennett. He smelled a rat and ordered it --no, wait --  ordered the Osceola County sheriff to issue the permit.


But the tastiest morsel in the judge's order tells the sherf he must take a college level class on the U.S. Constitution.


This suggests some personnel actions. Sherf Weber should be reassigned as a school crossing guard. Judge Bennett would look handsome in the robs of a Supreme Court justice,  way better than wazzername.


The AP gave Weber a chance to tell his side of the tale, but he decided to keep still. I think I would too.






EDIT AND UPDATE:  This case has wider implications than we thought. A more complete report makes it clear the federal judge raked Sheriff Weber for depriving Mr. Dorr of his Second Amendment rights because he objected to Dorr exercising his First Amendment rights. And for being considered "weird" by some members sof the community.  Maybe this one will become famous as the Great Iowa Right to be Weird Decision. 

Drive smart, pack a piece

The smartest drivers in America live in Kansas, Oregon, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa.

CCW shall issue states include: Kansas, Oregon, South Dakota, Minnesota, and  Iowa. 


The dumbest  drivers in American live in New York, followed by New Jersey, Washington, D.C, California , and Rhode Island.


May issue/no issue  states include: 


New York,  New Jersey, Washington, D.C, California , and Rhode Island.
.

Iowa Shall-Issue CCW Law: Got It.

The Iowa House has approved the shall-issue bill 81-16. Minor amendments sent it back to the Senate which approved them 36-4.

It 's now up to Gov. Chet "Ya Big Lug" Culver, and virtually everyone is assuming he will sign it.

It may be of more interest to most readers that an apparently good reciprocity provision is part of the bill. While I haven't seen the final wording, it appears to be a straightforward invitation to come strapped if you have a permit from your own state. The House beat back an effort to complicate things with a state-by state review to make sure your permitting laws are as wonderful as ours.

Some details are here.

Shall-Issue Update -- CCW politics in Iowa

(Dramatic music UP , FADE , and OUT to intonation Welcome to today's episode of ... The Eleventh Hour.)

Lawmakers in Des Moines are saying they will debate and perhaps vote today on SF2379 which would make Iowa a a shall-issue state and add CCW reciprocity. The current plan is to begin in the Senate, then, if it passes, to flip the bill to the House. Any assignment to a committee is a bill killer.

You always look for a little humor when dealing with these critters, but the only funny thing I've seen so far is the Des Moines Register headline; "Gun Bill Doesn't Please All." ( Really? No shit Sam Spade?)

But the headline does highlight a possibly ugly little scenario. While the NRA backs this bill, rival Iowa gun organizations differ. One favors the measure while another believes it is too weak. I am sure some of the reported disagreement is manufactured as political cover for some politicians to vote against it on grounds that it didn't go far enough. Allowing for the usual ignorance among the electorate, the lawmaker can tell his leftie constituents that he voted against CCW expansion. He can tell his 2A backers he did so because he was waiting for a better bill to come along. Politics as usual.

The other routine killer ploy is passage in the Senate and amendment in the House, complicating things just enough so that all 150 solons can throw up their hands. They're trying to make this their final day, and the action down there has already begun looking like a bunch of community college freshmen on spring break in Matamoros.

Again, Iowa readers, please pick up the phone and ask your critter nicely to support Senate File 2379.

Some of the details are here, especially in the sidebar.

EDIT at 10 a.m. -- A longer-than-expected House Judiciary Committee meeting was still underway a little bit ago. The length leads my mole to think Democrat leaders are likely to permit a vote, He opines that if the vote occurs, the bill will pass. In any case, no one on the liberal side is paying much attention to the merits of the bill. They're slicing and dicing all the ingredients of having a plausible story to tell their people between now and Nov. 2.

If the bill passes, Democratic Gov. Chet "Ya Big Lug" Culver will play the same vote-counting game. He is up for election this year and quite vulnerable. He'll sign if his pollsters tell him to, veto otherwise.

Sort of a BULLETIN on Iowa Gun Rights; Shall Issue

If you're reading The Travis McGee Reader in Iowa,* I have suggestion for you, and you have very little time to act. The legislative action could come in the next few minutes, possibly some other time before projected adjournment Sunday or Monday.

As a matter of strict political calculation, Democrat leaders in the House and Senate +may+ permit a vote on a shall-issue CCW bill. My reports (I have spies on the floor.) indicate they haven't yet decided if it's politically advantageous to allow their rank and file to vote. Earlier, the top dogs had scuttled the bill.

Radio Iowa, a news service of some integrity, summarizes it:

"Legislators made some final decisions Thursday, with still more looming today — including a possible debate over gun rights. A bill backed by the National Rifle Association could be among the last to clear the legislature. It would set a statewide standard for issuing gun permits, replacing the current system which gives the sheriffs in each of Iowa’s 99 counties the authority to decide who gets a permit to carry a gun and who doesn’t."

The needed action is simple: Call your lawmaker and ask him or her to speak out in favor of permitting the vote. Ask them to put the pressure on the leaders -- Sen. Gronstal and Rep. McCarthy -- to permit the vote. Most Republicans favor the bill, as do enough gun-rights Democrats to provide a margin of victory. Frame your words accordingly, and it can't hurt to politely but firmly emphasize to Democratic lawmakers that your November vote will be heavily influenced by his action here.

(As political background for folks not fortunate enough to live here. Democrats control everything in Iowa right now, governor's office, house, senate. They're frightened to death of losing it all this year. Iowa is a pro-gun state, but rather laid-back about it, so there's never been any very serious pressure by 2A friends to enact shall-issue. The mere fact the liberal Democratic leaders are considering CCW reform indicates their belief that shall-issue has substantial election implications.)

---

Edit: There isn't time for USPS to do any good. Email is better than nothing, but I suspect the legislators' email boxes are overflowing, so our best shot at this is the telephone. Let's keep trying to get through. And please don't be afraid to talk with your lawmaker's clerk if that's the best you can do. Most of them are faithful about relaying constituent comments.

---

*McGee foiled some evil here, not far off the Lincoln Highway west of Ames. Free Fall in Crimson is the tag John D. gave the yarn in which Trav allowed as how this was a great place to visit but he wouldn't care to live here.

OK, THAT'S ENOUGH READING. GET ON THE PHONE. DO IT +NOW+!

Hit a Starbucks On Your Way Home from theNext Gun Show

For the first time since I knew Starbucks existed, I plan to patronize the firm next time I'm in a settlement large enough to support a population of folks who think four bucks is about the right price to pay for a cup of coffee.

I don't know if I'll strap on or not. Maybe the big silver-looking Ruger in buscadero leather with plenty of spare .45C rounds in the loops? That could be fun, but the Starbuckers I've observed through the windows don't strike me as the type to get the joke.

In any case, I do want to leave a few dollars there and to make sure the company knows my two reasons. In the first place it is nice to see a firm not getting all pants-wetty about legally borne firearms on its premises. The second is because I've already had more than four bucks worth of fun watching the brain-frappeed lefties conniptionize themselves.

Making a Home Unsalable

Brigid reports photographically on turning a powder measure into a lamp. Since her ranch is on the market, that leads to a funny discussion of the predicament shooters face when they decide to sell their homes. I've been there, and it isn't fun to get your butt all culture shocked by suddenly having to deal with the general public and a particularly objectionable subset of it -- the dreaded real estate peddler.

They +always+ insist that you change your house around to a sterile nothingness that would bore even a Nebraskan. I guess the idea is that any personality evident in a home scares the bejeezus out of house lookers, and that even a hint of gun grizzardry sends them screaming madly for their mommies.

So, as the photo suggests, I'm in trouble if I ever decide to leave Camp J. The "good" weapons are vaulted up, but I have a hard time living without reminders of the American frontier close by. For as long as I can remember I've had a lever gun hanging purdy in the living room, and sometimes a six-shooter keeps it company.

What you see is what's current in my Cowboy Corner, though I must apologize for the bland white behind the BL22 and the 94. The drywall is doomed, firmly scheduled to be replaced by honest pine very soon.

A very naughty two-word response is available for house peddlers and tire kickers who find it useful to tell me all this is offensive. (Actually, I need to trot it out for a couple of cousins every once in a while, too. It is a family curse that too many of my extended kin get their ideas -- decorating, manners, politics and all -- exclusively from Redbook, HGTV and Oprah. )

(APPENDIX 1: The framed item left is a copy of a Kentucky land warrant for direct ancestor John __________, a three-percenter who earned it as a soldier in the Virginia Continental Line. The stuff hanging is another self-conscious coup-counting device -- credentials from national political conventions and junk like that. The little revolver is one of Bill Ruger's early products, in the family for 41 years.)

Maybe the Jeffersonian in them?

The Virginia Legislature will open an express lane on "Lobby Day" when hundreds of pro-freedom citizens are expected to visit them in the Capitol .

The express lane is for men and women carrying CCW permits. Capitol security says if you have a CCW but no large objects that need scanning, just head for the express lane with a picture ID and your CCW in hand.

Are Virginia citizens with carry permits less dangerous than those of other states? Are Virginia lawmakers outrageously courageous? Or bearing death wishes?

Hats off to Virginia lawmakers and the tip of one to Turk of Turonistan.

Gun pron and good guys

Kevin reports that the good guys have outflanked the hoplophobic FeyPal, meaning you can enter the raffle for a dandy 1911 clone on line. The details are at The Smallest Minority, where you'll also find some graphic images of a Para in various stages of dress. Viewer discretion is advised.

So is buying a ticket or two. It's a Soldier's Angels project.