Gun Show Bans Guns, Kills Show

Yorkshire posted an article on The First Street Journal that discussed Reed Exhibitions’ sudden and unilateral decision to side with the anti-constitutional, Second Amendment killing gun grabbers and the aftermath of that decision. One sixth of the exhibitors and celebrities pulled out of the nation’s largest outdoor sportsman’s show in a show of solidarity with the US Constitution. You can find a large (but incomplete) list of the boycotters here. That list includes Cabelas, one of the nation’s premiere big box stores dedicated to the outdoor sportsman, muzzle loaders, knife businesses, bow organizations and businesses, turkey call companies, fishing related companies and organizations, conservationists, television shows and celebrities, and much, much more.

Reed Exhibitions tried to shrug it all off as “a small percentage of more than 1,000 exhibits” as if Cabelas was equivalent to Kokosing Backwater Beaver Traps, but decided to “stop loss” (an investment term for the first rule of holes) and cancel the show. Granted, they called it “postpone” but if Reed Exhibitions continues to side with the anti-constitutionalist gun grabbers, there will be no show. Period. Because the celebrities and exhibitors necessary for such a show will not participate and the people who go to such a show will not attend. As it is, Reed Exhibitions severely and possibly permanently harmed its reputation with the very people it depends upon for millions of dollars of profit a year.

Hey, Reed Exhibitions, spoiler alert: I watched Red Dawn and your side loses.

Constitution lovers, check out the list of boycotters and support them with your outdoor recreation dollars. You don’t have to be a hunter or even a gun owner. If you’re into boating, fishing, camping, hiking, mountain climbing, conservation or any other outdoor recreation, you can find your equipment and educational needs among that list.

For Eric

A couple of interesting things that fell out of an old book on the general topic. Posted for John’s companion in ideological arms, Eric; and anyone else interested.

Should be self explanatory. You might want to note the list at the bottom of image 2.

 

 

 

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Just a Marine

From the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call:

NCAA to honor Kutztown U. grad who lost leg after Iraq War bombing

David Borden, a Marine, lost a leg after Iraq bombing and went on to Afghanistan.

Kutztown grad and US Marine David Borden, who lost a leg and nearly lost his life in a bombing in Iraq, only to return to active duty in Afghanistan, will receive the NCAA’s Inspiration Award Friday in Texas. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO, THE MORNING CALL / August 12, 2011)

By Jeff Schuler, Of The Morning Call | 10:06 p.m. EST, January 17, 2013

His right foot had been blown off. Later, infection would force the amputation of his leg just above the knee.

His right femur was broken. His right forearm was broken, his left shattered. He had a collapsed lung, a ruptured bladder, and doctors also estimated that between 150 and 200 ball bearings had been embedded in his body.

“There wasn’t a piece of his body except for maybe his left leg that wasn’t messed up,” David Borden Sr. said of the Jan. 19, 2008, suicide bomb attack in Ramadi, Iraq, that nearly took the life of his son, Marine Lt. David Borden, Kutztown University Class of 2003.

Yet shortly after coming out of a coma at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, and as he faced countless surgeries and months of rehabilitation, Borden had just two thoughts: to get out of his bed and help motivate others at the facility in their recovery efforts, and to eventually return to active duty.

A lot more at the link.

Captain Borden returned to the Middle East in January of 2011, as a Marine company commander, and he wasn’t just sitting behind a desk; he walked armed patrols outside of the gates as well.

He is being awarded the NCAA Inspiration Award because he played football at Kutztown University, but noted:

I’m not the only injured service member to return to active duty, and I’m not the only injured service member to lose a limb and return to active duty. A lot of people do this and don’t get the publicity I’ve received because of my command billet and this award.

Captain Borden doesn’t think that he is a “hero,” saying:

The word ‘hero’ is for the men and women who give the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

A hero? I will leave that for others to decide. To me, it sounds like he’s just a Marine.
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Cross-Posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.

79 Years Later

79 years later and only the characters have changed. And from the Chicago Tribune

This is interesting background: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53074154@N00/5740393674/

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 67,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Convicted Hammer Murderer Murders Again, Liberals Blame Guns

A man brutally murdered his own grandmother in 1980, got convicted, and went to prison. After getting out of prison, he once again went on to murder people. He set a building ablaze, then proceeded to lay in wait for the firefighters to arrive so he could murder them. I’m sure you’ve already heard a little about him. He’s the man in western New York that was on the news. But did you know he was already convicted of murder?

It’s already illegal for him to have in his possession the gun he used to murder the firefighters, because he’s a convicted violent felon. He already murdered before, using a hammer and not a gun. He murdered family. And did a stint in prison for it. But the Left, always looking for ways to prevent criminals from bearing full responsibility for their actions, let the violent murderer free to murder again. And the Left, always looking for ways to prevent criminals from bearing full responsibility for their actions, blamed guns for his next bunch of murders.

The solution is very easy to understand. The solution is also Biblical. Execute the murderer and that will serve as a deterrence. No murder, once executed, has ever gone on to murder another person. But a violent hammer murderer who murdered his own family member has gone on to murder other people outside his family after being released from prison.

It wasn’t the gun that murdered those firefighters. It was a convicted violent murderer who did. But the Left refuses to lay the blame at the convicted violent murderer’s feet. To do so would be to require adults to be responsible for their actions, and the Left is apparently incapable of the basic logic necessary to come to that conclusion.

No, they want to steal our Providence-given Second Amendment rights from us law-abiding citizens.

Make it illegal to carry a gun and only criminals will have guns.
Remember, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

Taxes and the Pyrite State

From

Jerry Brown: California Will Have Surpluses

That’s what he says:

After years of red ink, Gov. Jerry Brown said on Thursday that California’s $96.7-billion general fund is now poised to end next year with a surplus, thanks to years of deep budget cuts and billions in new taxes approved by voters last year.

“We achieved the position we’re in because of tough cuts … and then the people voted for taxes,” he said. “We broke the logjam by going to the people.”

Schools will be the big winner in the governor’s new spending plan, receiving $56.2 billion in state funds, an increase by $2.7 billion over the last year. That funding is set to jump to more than $66 billion by 2016.

The budget also dedicated an additional $350 million to the state’s public insurance program, Medi-Cal, to help implement President Obama’s healthcare law.

Brown’s budget predicts only the second budget surplus in the last decade, with an $851-million surplus projected at the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year — if all his proposals are approved by lawmakers.

Jerry Brown says we will have surpluses. I say we will not.

We’ll see who is right.

The boldfaced parts were by Patterico commenter Taney O’Haley, who said that it sounded like wishful thinking to her.

Donald Douglas referenced an article from Investor’s Business Daily which pointed out that the overwhelming majority the voters gave to the Democrats puts the restrictions under Proposition 13 at risk, and that there are already at least two proposals in the legislature to weaken it:

Already, state Sen. Mark Leno wants to put a measure on the ballot to lower the two-thirds vote threshold for school district parcel taxes to 55%. State Sen. Lois Wolk introduced a bill that would ask voters to drop the vote threshold to 55% for library parcel taxes and bond measures.

In the Assembly, Tom Ammiano plans to reintroduce a bill seeking to revise the definition of an ownership change that triggers a new business property assessment. Voters’ OK isn’t needed. Even if the bill stalls, as it has in the past, business owners fear that its goal — squeezing more tax money from commercial property — will surface in other proposals, some with better odds.

The tax increases approved by the voters in November were temporary increases, adding a 0.25% increase to the state sales tax, and creating three new brackets for the most productive Californians, lasting for seven years. For a single Californian earning $500,000 or more, the new 12.3% marginal rate, combined with the new federal top rate of 39.6%, means that 51.9% of his earnings over the thresholds will be seized just in income taxes alone. If his earning power is portable — and for many of California’s top producers, it won’t be — moving to a state like Texas or Florida, which have no state income taxes, is a completely rational economic decision.

How many will? We can’t know yet, but we’ll see in two more years, when Governor Brown’s projection of a balanced state budget is either realized, or it is not.
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Cross posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.

Culture War on a Shoe String Budget

Over at the blog of the author, Sarah Hoyt, there’s a very good post.

I was going to try to use the theme to combine with some conversations from over at Ricochet.com, but then she went and put what I would’ve been pointing at into its own paragraph:

Both of these endeavors will change your perception and you’ll find yourself huffing at sitcoms you used to enjoy.   This is good.  Most of the politics are snuck into stuff like that (hence the directive that came down for more plots about healthcare in sitcoms and episodic dramas) and if you’re not aware of them they’ll insidiously color the way you see the world.  It’s brilliant to sneak them into entertainment because if you complain, you’re a sour puss.  But at this point they’re not even subtle, and you’ll start seeing them if you look: cardboard “conservative” characters who are anything but and who can’t defend their positions.  “Dangerous” tea partiers.  Liberating yourself through having indiscriminate sex and stuff.  The government as a fount of goodness.  It’s all there.  And it’s there on purpose.

There’s more, some general stuff on how the polite refusal to inject politics into everything puts us at a bit of a disadvantage, and it’s quite worth reading.  Now, on to my comments:

She’s right.  My husband is a lot more easy going than I am, but we both can’t watch some shows because of the obvious agenda involved.  Recognizing it isn’t just about paying attention or such– we had a rather long argument with my mother over a TV show that opened with a guy being shot inside his house by a SWAT team called in for a false hostage situation. (Before SWATting got big.)  The show, and the woman who taught me to not trust the story that the news presented, held the SWAT team (personified by the leader) responsible.  TrueBlue and I held those who certified that it was a hostage situation on an anonymous call from a random number as being responsible– there wasn’t any way for the guys who’d been told they were going in to a known hostage situation to know that the guy charging them with a kitchen knife was righteously defending his house.  The guy risking their lives had to be at fault, while the paper-pushers that actually created the entire situation had to be blameless– not even faceless, but as natural a thing as the sun rising, and as unquestioned.  Something goes wrong?  It’s the fault of those uniformed Authority Figure guys. (Who all incidentally looked military.)

Stories set up the way we see the world.