Emblazon

Posted on June 28, 2008 by Alaska

Existingthing came up with a tattoo design for where your gun shoulders. “The Cask of Amontillado” being my favorite story of all time, I heartily endorse it.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 5 Comments

Heller Day was Acidman’s Too

Posted on June 28, 2008 by Alaska

Back when Rob Smith was in rehab, Rivrdog encouraged folks to write him a letter. I’d only been reading Acidman for a couple weeks, but that was enough for me to fill an entire page. I wrote on the back of an 8.5×11 blowup of this pic — figured he could read it and then tack it to the wall for color/inspiration/amusement. At the time, I hadn’t written anyone a letter in more than twenty years. Boy I’m glad now I sent it to him when I did. Thanks, RD, and yeah, Kevin, Acidman would have loved Heller.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Battle Cry: Eureka!

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Alaska

I was sitting on the back patio just now, enjoying the quiet evening, warm with a nice breeze, the air fresh despite the haze from the wildfires raging elsewhere in California; my pipe sent milk-white streams of Amphora up to dissipate in the sunset-gilded redwoods and pines above me. I was sipping Scotch and rereading Heller with ever-broader grins, when the phone rang.

It was one of our employees. Last week, she’d gone in for an endoscopy to test for cancer. Because of an awful insurance mixup she didn’t have the money to pay for it. Long story short, we broke a rule and loaned it to her, no interest. She was calling to tell me that the results showed she was cancer-free. She said, “I feel as though a giant weight’s been lifted off my shoulders.”

As I hung up with her, I glanced down at the Heller decision and said to the air, “I do too.”

Not my backyard, but close

From being in one of the most oppressed States in the Union, aching to leave the state to protect my firearms rights but torn because I love living here, the Heller decision’s transformed me and every other California gun owner. We’re now, by chance and geography, on the front line of the firearms civil rights battle for the next ten years at least. There are nonprofit civil-rights groups forming to fund new lawsuits, existing organizations fighting legislative battles in Sacramento and throughout the state, and they all need my support, and the support of every California gun owner and gun owners nationwide — whether in the form of money; phone calls and letters; volunteer labor; helping to fill the media, new and old, with the message that this is a civil right, as valued as any other; or even merely taking steps to make gun ownership more visible, more acceptable in California’s public discourse. We need it all.

Why? The big cases establishing once and for all that “assault-weapons” bans, magazine-capacity restrictions, arbitrary restrictions on concealed carry, handgun registration in the name of “safety,” you name it, are unconstitutional — they’re going to come from California.John Brown, Bleeding Kansas. Yeah, that's right.

Why on earth would I want to leave now?

Hey, you, free-staters! Move to California and join the fight!

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 12 Comments

Listening to Chuck Michel on KQED right now

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Alaska

Lead attorney for the NRA’s suit to incorporate Heller at the state level. Being filed today against San Francisco. Listen here.

Eugene Volokh, too!

Kamala Harris, SF DA: “unfortunately, as a result of the Heller ruling, there is going to be a slippery slope.” BWAHAHAHAHAH.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 2 Comments

Assault Weapons Case In California Coming Up

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Alaska

In addition to the challenge to San Francisco’s gun ban, there’s more good news from California. Gene Hoffman, chairman of the Calguns Foundation, has solved the standing problem that has been the bane of many a firearms-rights case.

This is what a denial for an Assault Weapons Permit in California looks like.

Interesting times, folks!

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 2 Comments

What Do We Do Now?

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Alaska

Robb Allen said it right: this is just the beginning of the fight. Now we have to follow up.

What can the blogosphere do? We’re the new journalists, folks. Let’s follow Bitter’s lead and be proactive about it. Bitter, got any advice for us?

As for today, I have a buddy, one of the few remaining Zoroastrians in the world and an immigrant from India who only recently got his green card after a five year wait. During that time I’ve been educating him on gun rights, none of which he could exercise. But now… he’s going to take the test to get his California Handgun Safety Card TODAY and I’m going to sell him the Ruger Single-Six in .17 HMR shown at top left. For a buck.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 4 Comments

Suit Being Filed Against San Francisco’s Ban on Guns in Public Housing

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Alaska

It’s sobering to think that those few votes in Florida in 2000 are all that stood between yesterday’s Heller victory and a 7-3 decision (with two Gore appointees to the Court instead of Alito and Roberts) finding that there’s no individual right.
Yes, Gura et al. probably wouldn’t have brought the case under those circumstances. But somebody else very well might have. I speak from bitter experience here in California, where Silveira v. Lockyer put an anti-gun decision on the books just because some idiot (and incompetent) attorney practically shouting “shall not be infringed!!!” wouldn’t heed the advice of cooler-headed gun rights groups to hold off on his case.
Happily, The Right People are behind the San Francisco suit that’s being filed against SF’s ban of ANY gun in public housing. Lead attorney Chuck Michel will be on KQED’s radio program “Forum” at 9:00am Pacific time TODAY. You can LISTEN LIVE here.
And there’s another bright spot: California may be a perfect venue to get a win on incorporation grounds, based on the way Silveira was decided:

From Gene Hoffman’s analysis at Calguns:

Continue reading →

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 9 Comments

Celebration

Posted on June 26, 2008 by Alaska

While Phil gets to enjoy the fine fare at the hospital, my wife and I are going to be celebrating Heller at our local Chili’s restaurant, where I’ll enjoy a rack of sugar-rubbed baby back ribs and quaff a generous shot of a fine alcoholic beverage — and another one for Phil, of course!

What are you doing to celebrate?  Let us know in the comments!

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 7 Comments

And I’m out

Posted on June 26, 2008 by Phil Kadath

I’ll be gone until Monday and I’m handing to RNS keys off to David, who will be your host for the weekend.

I’m going in for a Bronchoscopy procedure right after I get off work tomorrow morning and the Frau Doktor has informed me that the sedative will be of the type to make me virtually useless until late Saturday (also known as “typically liberal”).

I haven’t been a patient of this type for quite a few years and the usual butterflies are currently arriving. In stretch limos, it seems. With my good luck having been expended today on Heller, I’ll consider myself lucky if the Frau Doktor doesn’t hit the button for the biopsy needle, sending it into my brain as the scope’s tube passes through my nasal passages.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 2 Comments

Relative Heller

Posted on June 26, 2008 by Phil Kadath

Before anyone goes on and gets away with telling you that today’s Heller decision was all because of four right-wing nutjobs and a rube they were able to trick into agreeing with them, do tell them to take a look at the Morgan Stanley Capital Group v Public Utilities Department #1 of Snohomish County that also came out today.

Snohomish County is the one on the northern border of King County here in Washington. The county officials fell for the signing of big contracts to buy for energy back in the late 1990’s from, you guessed it, Enron and the like. They figured that with these contracts, they’d be saving their taxpayers money because the cost was going up so fast.

The bad part was that the county officials who made the decision to sign these contracts were idiots. Enron fell out, the price of energy stabilized, and now they owe big buckaroonies to Morgan Stanley. They’ve been trying since 2002 to get out of having to honor these contracts.

The local federal courts said that the PUD had to honor the contracts.

The Ninth Circus said they didn’t.

And today, the SCOTUS, in a 5-2 decision, with Scalia writing the Majority opinion, being concurred with by Kennedy, Thomas and Alito, AGREED that the PUD didn’t have to honor the contracts, but that the Ninth needed to study their regulatory law a little bit more because they had their reasoning backwards.

Roberts and Breyer stood down because of conflicting issues (I believe they own stock in the MSCG or some such) and Stevens and Souter dissented together (which sounds dirty, but isn’t).

Now take a look at the names in this very non-conservative decision. They match, Justice for Justice (minus the non-participants) the Heller decision.

Granted, I’m not a Snohomish County rate payer, but in my opinion, they should have fired and voted out of office the idiots who had the idea to sign the contract in the first place and bit the bullet and finished it out.

Yes, there was market manipulation happening in the cost of energy. And yes, it would have sucked. But there is still market manipulation going on right now. PLUS, the people of Snohomish County entrusted these officials with their power rates and they were failed by them.

Sadly, they still have a number of the same idiots in charge, and they’re trying to squeeze out of paying up for their dumb voting habits.

They learned nothing; Either the voters or the officials.

The court’s job is to decide issues in a fair manner. While the Ninth is somewhat like Judge Maybelline, the SCOTUS’s job isn’t to get you out of a dumb decision scott-free.

Yet that was their call on this.

The left-wing Constitutional extremists, who believe that the 2nd Amendment is a “collective” right, are wailing up and down at the exact same Justices who they are praising in the MSCG v PUD#1 of Snohomish County decision.

If they know this fact, they are lying bastards who deserve a good beating about the head and shoulders.

If they don’t know this fact, they are too ignorant to continue an intellectually honest discussion with on any topic.

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Uncategorized | Leave a comment