Links For Your Weekend Reading

I spent three days this week in the gun control paradise known as Chicago. So I'm doing a little catch-up on my reading and I've come across a few blog posts that I think are must reads.

Since the murders at Majory Stoneman Douglas HS in Parkland, Florida, we have subjected to a non-stop assault on our civil rights from the gun control industry and their media allies. As the late Professor Brian Anse Patrick showed in his research, the NRA and gun rights groups in general actually benefit from this assault. My friend and Polite Society Podcast co-host Rob Morse has a post up about how NRA and SAF memberships have been rising with this assault. If you want to go into more depth on this, I highly recommend Prof. Patrick's The National Rifle Association and the Media: The Motivating Force of Negative Coverage. The Kindle edition is $9.99 or about half the cost of the paperback version.

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned has two posts up that I would encourage you to read. The first, Dear NRA, says we and the NRA need to up our grassroots game. In particular, we need to convert those who believe in the Second Amendment from being passive observers to active participants. Our opponents have upped their game and are becoming much more effective. It will not be merely enough to watch a NRA-TV video with Dana Loesch or Colion Noir and nod your head in agreement. It will entail getting our rear ends out to city council meetings and hearings when they impact our gun rights.

In his second post, Sebastian has a lexicon of gun terms that the media has thrown out there to confuse non-gun owners. He addresses them and how we should in turn address them when a non-gun owner asks us questions. In one sense - and this is me saying it and not Sebastian - we need to listen to the immortal words of Crash Davis in Bull Durham, "You're gonna have to learn your cliches. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to learn them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends." In other words, we need to know the gun prohibitionists' argument better than they do. You should also read Tam's post on Magical Thinking which also addresses this.

Kevin Creighton has a short post saying we need to get back into the game. He's right. We need to get back into the cultural game because we are in a cultural war. Two things he suggests is reaching out to motorcycle riders as we have a shared interest in freedom and to videogamers to encourage them to get into competitive shooting.

Finally, Erin Palette looks at SB 7026 which was signed in Florida on Friday by Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL). She analyzes it in depth and the implications of many of the things in the bill are horrendous. Insofar as creating "school guardians", it will be dependent upon a county's sheriff to approve it there. Moreover, it will require 132 hours of training to become qualified as well as another 12 hours in a "certified nationally recognized diversity training program". Diversity training for stopping an armed attacker? Who the f*&k came up with that nonsense.

So now you have your weekend reading in nice, digestible nuggets. My other suggestion is if there is a gun show in your area, go to it.  Spend some quality time with your cultural brothers and sisters. And, if you are in the Asheville area, go to the Asheville Gun Show at the WNC Ag Center. While there, stop at the Grass Roots North Carolina booth and say hello. I'll be working it from 10am until 5pm.

Parts Available At Lowe's

I stumbled across this silent documentary about British production of the Sten during WWII. It called to mind a comment that Tam had made last year during all the angst in California about "ghost guns" and 80% lowers. She noted, "Heck, Lowe's sells 90% Sten receivers on aisle 5."

After watching this documentary, I believe Tam is correct. The Sten is a crude firearm but seeing whole wheelbarrows full of them leaving the factory leaves me almost giddy. A guy can dream.

If You Aren't Mad About This, You Should Be

This morning when I started to make my rounds of the blogs I came across an anomaly. Tam Keel's View From The Porch was coming up with a weird message saying that it was open to invited readers only. Thinking it was just a typo on my part, I tried to access her blog from a link at Shall Not Be Questioned. I got the same result.

As she is a Facebook friend, I checked there for info. I saw that she had posted a note last night saying she was done with it. Reading through the comments she noted that she didn't need the hassle and she had writing for pay that needed attention.

This is a stunning loss to the gun blogosphere. Tam was not merely the Mistress of Snark. While she was that in spades, it was her deep knowledge of firearms and training that kept me coming back. Whether it was her recent posts about testing out the Walther PPX or her collection of Savage pocket pistols arranged in chronological order, you learned something and it made you think.

And why did we lose Tam as a blogger? Because of an unrelenting cyberstalker who just wouldn't give up.

One who writes nonsense like this:

If my South Bend business trip wraps up early tomorrow I might stick my nose in the 1500; I don't need anything but yesterday was my b-day 60 so who knows...I haven't hit a big show in a few years and just a walk-through with my little Georgia Girl would be fun. And I may see you at your Sun. gathering for a bit, maybe buy the group a round; that in itself would be a nice little present from me to me.

That is just a taste of the crap he's been sending Tam at, from what I can gather, an unrelenting pace.

I don't blame Tam a bit for saying enough was enough. Perhaps this will be merely a hiatus. We can only hope for that. In the meantime, keep an eye out for her published work. I know she writes for SWAT Magazine as well as Shooting Illustrated.

I do have one wish. I would like this cyberstalker found, charged, convicted, and imprisoned for a long time.

UPDATE: Tam has turned her blog archives on and has disabled the comments. While she is still on indefinite hiatus, we are still able to partake of her past work. Thanks to Rob Reed for making the request. And thanks to Tam for agreeing to do it.

Comment Of The Day

The comment of the day comes from Tam. It is about State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and his arrest yesterday for public corruption and arms trafficking. It is deliciously snarky in a way that only the Mistress of Snark could do with her skill and aplomb.

This guy ranting about the dangers of the criminal misuse of firearms is like Jerry Sandusky railing against the touching of little boys.

"Jumped-Up Refugee From A Zoning Board"

The title of this post comes from a description of Sen. Dianne Feinsten (D-CA) made by Tam in a post back in February. I loved it then and I especially love it now that DiFi is all butt hurt over the eloquent thrashing she took from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.

Ted Cruz asked DiFi whether she thought Congress could likewise limit the right of the people under the 1st and 4th Amendments as she is seeking to do with her Assault Weapons Ban of 2012. As you can see in the video below, DiFi gets all huffy about it. Three male Democrats also have to jump in because it seems that they are worried that a woman can't make a strong enough argument or so it would seem.





After the committee business meeting, DiFi had to run to CNN's Wolf Blitzer to wrap the mantle of victimhood across her shoulders. She said, "Well, I just felt patronized. I felt he was somewhat arrogant about it." CNN is still playing the clip below of DiFi whining about her treatment as I saw just this morning on TV in a local McDonalds.





Did DiFin really say she put her fingers in the wounds of George Moscone and Harvey Milk? Hmnm. I wonder when DiFi will get around to telling people that fellow Supervisor Dan White didn't use an AR or an AK or even an FN-FAL to murder them. No, Dan White used a S&W Model 10 in .38 Special - a plain old everyday revolver then used by police forces around the country.

20 years in the Senate and 9 years as the accidental mayor of San Francisco still doesn't make one a expert on Constitutional matters. Nor does it seem to engender any real respect for it either. She is, and will always remain, what Tam described her as - a meddling harpy and a jumped-up refugee from a zoning board.

Comment Of The Day

SayUncle links to a story in the New Republic in which Barack Obama says when asked if he has ever fired a gun, "Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time." To which Tam replies:

Yeah, he was busting clays with Mantei’s girlfriend.

Pics or it didn’t happen, Urkel.

Just like Joe Biden saying he isn't going to give up his Beretta O/U, Obama saying this to suck up to hunters and skeet/trap shooters just doesn't ring true. Like someone else commented, the White House Press Office would have released pictures of this a week or two before his press conference outlining his gun control plans.

It's Time To Help Out One Of Our Own

I'm a little late getting this up but I hope you will respond generously. If you read gun blogs for more than a day, you know Tam of The View From The Porch blog. She is, as JayG called her recently, the Snark Mistress.

She is all that and more. She also, as she revealed on Friday, has cancer. Tam has a basal cell carcinoma on her nose that will need to be removed. Fortunately, it is very treatable. The downside is that Tam does not have health insurance. I don't care what form of cancer you have but when the docs utter the "C word" the price just went up.

You can help Tam out by making a donation to the tip jar on her blog. I really hope you will be generous.

To help encourage you to make a donation, a number of bloggers have come together to organize raffles to benefit Tam.

 OldNFO has donated a Colt Diamondback in .38 Special that has just been worked over by Cylinder & Slide as a prize. Michael Hast of The Holster Site will be donating a custom holster of your choice to go with it. You can enter that raffle by following the instructions at the link.

Dennis from DragonWorks leather is having another raffle for Tam and the prize is one of his Viper Holsters.

JayG of MArooned is coordinating links to all the raffles and Jennifer is acting as the raffle coordinator. If you have something you might want to donate to the raffle, contact JayG at the link to his blog.

I would again urge you to be generous. Regardless of the form, cancer is a nasty thing.

Quote Of The Day

The quote of the day comes from Tam and her discussion of the abysmally poor marksmanship of New York's Finest on Friday.

That's gotta suck for Bloomie. What appeared to be an ideal soapbox for a little blood-dancing national conversation on how America's lax gun laws are hurting Mike's fat-free, sugar-free, low sodium gun-free paradise turns into a national conversation on why the hell can't Mike's cops shoot?

Tam On Quislings

Tam nails it. Tactical Firearms of Katy, TX and its owner Jeremy Alcede went on talk radio in support of a ban on online ammunition sales.

Dear Jeremy Alcede of Tactical Firearms, Katy, TX: I hope you freeze in the dark, you gutless quisling punk.


When your children are crying "Daddy, why are we on food stamps?" you can tell them "It's because your Daddy was a selfish, pusillanimous sellout who put his personal bottom line ahead of the Bill of Rights, kids, and so nobody would buy anything from his store ever again."

Go to Tam's for all the links.

View From The Porch

I think my view from the porch this week is a little different than Tam's.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Quote Of The Day

The quote of the day comes from Tam regarding Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement of a special investigation into leaks of classified information.

Eric Holder announced that he was shocked, shocked! to find that there were leaks of classified information from the Obama administration, and he would investigate it immediately. I have no idea how the newscaster read that line with a straight face; this is like expecting the minister for Reich security in 1940s Germany to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Jews.

All Hail, Tam!

I agree with Miguel that when Chris Muir of Day by Day Cartoon puts you in his cartoon strip, you've arrived as a blogger! And then some!

Now to figure out which revolver Tam is carrying.


Courtesy of Chris Muir at Day by Day Cartoon

Quote Of The Day

Here in western North Carolina, the hippies, Yankees, and vegans have turned organic grocery stores like EarthFare, Greenlife, and the French Broad River Co-op into shrines for politically correct food. The next time I'm tempted to go shopping at one of these places I'll remember these wise words from Tam.

People browse the organic breakfast food shelves for the muesli that tastes most like authentic sawmill floor sweepings, because that's how you know it's good for you. It's not food, it's a hair shirt you eat. When you're doing penance for not going jogging this morning or for having that extra martini last night, it's not supposed to taste good.

I'll leave the hair shirts to the long dead saints and mystics.

Quote Of The Day

When multi-millionaire NBA stars are joining "million hoodie marches" and when you are shocked that the name "Trayvon" was not uttered in the news round-up on CBS Sunday Morning, you know the whole Zimmerman-Martin affair has jumped the shark.

Thrown into this media circus is a sage, yet snarky, comment from Tam:

I wish the media would find another ball to chase soon. I have never hoped for some random celebrity to choke on their last cookie so hard in my life. Elton John would probably do. He'd wipe the whole Zimmerman/Martin thing right off the front page, and he's kinda past his Sell-By date, anyway. I mean, all he's done in the last twenty years is release more re-recordings of songs about dead blondes, right? Come on, Elton, how about leaning in over the plate and taking one for the team?

I can see the epitaph now - "He was just walking down a yellow brick road listening to some crocodile rock and dreaming of being a rocket man when he was beaten by a deaf dumb and blind kid (who) sure plays a mean pinball."

Quote Of The Day

Today is the day that pools at commercial establishments such as hotels and motels must have a permanent wheelchair lift so as to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is going to be enforced by the Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights Section of the Department of Justice. Many hotels and motels will probably be closing off access to their pools until they can comply with this mandate for fear of being sued by DOJ. In other words, no one swims, able bodied and disabled alike.

However, as Tam notes:

Fair's fair, and here in America, we're all about "fair". It's one of the founding principles laid out in the Monroe Doctrine by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. I remember that from school.

Ah, yes, fairness.

Quote Of The Day

The Today Show ran a new feature called The Rossen Report where their so-called investigative reporter Jeff Rossen was shocked(!) to find that people used the Internet to advertise guns for sale. Tam applies a industrial-grade smackdown as only she can do.

I demand that we close the Going Wherever You Want Loophole! If we checked everyone for government issued photo ID as they walked out their front door, we could prevent sidewalks from being superhighways for criminals, but the ACLU has vowed to fight any such legislation.

That's about the level of logic on display here, wherein some de-beaked, cage-raised Manhattanite makes the discovery that the barbarians in far-off free-range America, 'way across the Hudson, are allowed to sell their personal property to each other without going through an orgy of forelock-tugging and Mother-may-I down at the cop shop.

Suck it, media boy. I know this may come as a shock to you, but hardly anybody's even listening to you anymore. Maybe the steady hemorrhage of Nielsen ratings has caused an hypoxia-inducing vacuum in the studio, but even non-president Al Gore can tell you that you're on the wrong side of history on this one; I'm sure you have him on speed dial down there at msnbc, so call him and ask him.

For another fisking of this (non) story, can be found on YouTube here.  The last time anyone paid any attention to Jeff Rossen was when he appeared in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Of course, it wasn't serious attention.

Quote Of The Day

The quote of the day comes from Tam regarding the authors of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank, a pair of career tax leeches on the cursus dishonorum, neither of whom has soiled their patrician hands with an honest day's work in their life, are going to bring sense to financial markets and look out for the well-being of the little guy? Yeah, right.

And I think she is unfortunately correct that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will eventually have its own SWAT team. It just won't have a director if Obama continues to nominate hyper-partisan types and the Senate maintains a backbone.

Quote Of The Day

Tam at View from the Porch on the Department of Education using a SWAT team to collect a defaulted student loan:

Look me in the eye and defend this. No, wait... imagine looking Thomas Jefferson in the eye and defending this.