The Wandering Minstrel

Two headlines today have bolstered our confidence in the decision to relocate from Kalifornistan to the Arizona Republic:

California: Ventura County Assemblyman proposes ban on lead shot

Ventura County Assemblyman Pedro Nava, who three years ago authored a landmark law that barred the use of lead bullets by those hunting deer in areas where condors are known to forage, introduced new legislation Wednesday that would ban the use of lead shot by those hunting pheasant, quail, doves and other birds in California wildlife areas.

Note that there is no scientific evidence that lead shot is bad for the health of anything in the wild other than the target.

Arizona’s Concealed Carry Reform Bill (HB2347) Moving Forward!

Last week we told you that State Representative Adam Driggs (R-11), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was refusing to release House Bill 2347.

After extensive conversations with Chairman Driggs, he has assured us that he was simply holding the bill in order to work with the bill’s sponsor to consider how amendments which were being drafted would affect Arizona’s law-abiding gun owners.

Chairman Driggs released the bill from his Committee on Monday, February 22 with his full support, so please contact your State Representatives and ask them to support HB2347. Contact information for your State Representatives can be found by clicking here.

We understand Chairman Driggs’ desire to know the final content of this bill before releasing it from his committee. Chairman Driggs has been a consistent champion for Second Amendment rights and a friend of the NRA.

Assembly Bill 962, the bill to restrict ammunition sales and to require fingerprinting purchasers, was approved by Schwarzenegger after being passed by the State Legislature in 2009. Assemblyman Curt Hagman, whose response to my email I published in a comment, has introduced AB 373, which repeals AB 962.

CRPA and the NRA have set up an on-line petition that Californians can sign, in support of AB 373. As a Californian, you can also copy the text of the petition and send it to your local assembly member. We’re going to do both. You can click here and enter your zip code to find your Assembly Member’s contact information.

Anti-AB 962 image egregiously lifted from the petition website.

As a citizen of the State of California, I hereby voice my strongest opposition to the passage of Assembly Bill 962 (Deleon) [Restrictions on ammunition sales] by the California Legislature and Governor in 2009.

This action was an attack on common sense and an insult to law-abiding firearms owners throughout the State. Furthermore, AB962, taking effect on February 1, 2011, mandates individuals purchasing ammunition to be fingerprinted and registered at the time of sale and outlaws mail order ammunition purchases. AB 962 also requires dealers to maintain these records for at least five years and make them available for inspection by the California Department of Justice. As an additional burden, ammunition retailers are also required to store ammunition away from purchasers.

This scheme to register firearms owners as if they were common criminals must not be allowed to be implemented! Therefore, I respectfully urge the passage of Assembly Bill 373 (Hagman) [Repeal of AB962].

If passed, AB373 would return a level of sanity to the issue of obtaining firearms ammunition by law-abiding citizens. Since it is well-known that most criminals don’t purchase their firearms and ammunition from lawful sources, AB373 would allow our already over-burdened law enforcement agencies to focus on catching criminals instead of turning them into paper-chasing clerks attempting to implement the ill-advised scheme that is AB962.

It is for these, and many more reasons, that I must respectfully but strongly urge legislative support for Assembly Bill 373.

Whether you hunt or not, California gun owners and enthusiasts should get involved in this issue. The phony environmental assholes don’t want to save any freaking critters - they want to prohibit guns. Period. What really tweaks me is that hunters and sportsmen are probably better stewards of the environment than either CBD or the Sierra Club.

Via the NRA/ILA:

Hunting Threatened In Mojave National Preserve

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), in concert with the Sierra Club and other anti-hunting organizations, has filed a petition with the California Fish and Game Commission to ban most hunting in the Mojave National Preserve, including rabbit and varmint hunting. What hunting remains (resident game birds, deer, and bighorn sheep) would be restricted. The “Petition for Rulemaking Regarding Hunting in the Mojave National Preserve” blames hunters for the declining population of the desert tortoise, a threatened species under the state’s Endangered Species Act. CBD filed a similar petition in 2003, but the Commission did not act on it. The Commission will likely consider the CBD’s petition next week and could schedule a hearing on it early next year.

The petition contains the flimsiest of evidence that hunting in the Preserve is the cause or even a contributing factor of the decline in the tortoise population. Contrarily, statistics confirm that vehicular traffic and increased tourism within the designated critical habitat of the tortoise have increased substantially since 1994 when the Preserve was established. Those activities are believed to be the leading causes of tortoise mortality. Further, there is sufficient research to suggest that predation by ravens and coyotes is also taking its toll on this protected species. The objective of the petition is not to protect and enhance the tortoise population; rather it is an attempt by this coalition of anti-hunting organizations to permanently ban hunting from the Mojave National Preserve. CBD was behind the ban imposed on the use of lead ammunition for hunting big game within the range of the California condor. Earlier this year, CBD attempted unsuccessfully to extend that ban to all game species.

Please take a few minutes to write a letter requesting that the Commission deny the petition and address and mail it to:

John Carlson, Jr., Executive Director

California Fish and Game Commission

1416 Ninth Street, Room 1320

Sacramento, CA 95814

fgc@fgc.ca.gov

Hunters are continually being harassed with restrictions on hunting and access to hunting areas for reasons not based on science. Please do not let CBD impose their pseudo science on those who hunt in the Mojave National Preserve.

Californians interested in stopping the thinly veiled attempts at gun grabbing, should either write a letter or email the link above.

We posted this about a year ago when the Obamanation was telling us that “we have nothing to fear” from his incoming reign of socialism . . .

Nothing to Fear?

From the NRANews Channel

Nothing to Fear? - 17 Dec 2008 - Wayne LaPierre

Barack Obama says gun owners have “nothing to fear” from his incoming administration.

But instead of simply promising he won’t support new gun-control legislation, which would actually mean something, gun owners get empty statements of support for “common-sense gun safety laws.”

Is a 500 percent increase in taxes on firearms and ammunition a common-sense gun safety law? What about a ban on Right-to-Carry? A ban on the most popular sporting rifles in America? These are just some of the laws Barack Obama has supported in his short political career.

Millions of American gun owners disagree that these laws have anything to do with common sense, and that’s why they’re exercising their Second Amendment freedom now. They’re afraid they may not be able to do so as freely or fully in the future.

Given President-elect Obama’s rhetoric versus his record, gun owners have every reason to be concerned.

Nothing to fear? It’s worse than we ever imagined.

I’m sure there are many current events about firearms and the right to keep an bear arms being covered by our comrades in arms. I am struggling for a topic to post, so I thought I would re-post an article I wrote two years ago when the Obamas were saying things they think we want to hear just to get past the Democratic primaries . . .

Obamas Show ‘Concern’ for 9-1-1 Response Times . . .

. . . in Iowa, that is. This is just another case of gun-grabber Democrats telling a segment of voters what they want to hear:

Obama: My wife sees need for rural gun ownership “And by the way, Michelle, my wife, she was traveling up, I think, in eastern Iowa, she was driving through this nice, beautiful area, going through all this farmland and hills and rivers and she said ‘Boy, it’s really pretty up here,’ but she said, ‘But you know, I can see why if I was living out here, I’d want a gun. Because, you know, 911 is going to take some time before somebody responds. You know what I mean? You know, it’s like five miles between every house.’

“So the point is, though, we should be able to do that, and we should be able to enforce laws that keep guns off the streets in inner cities because some unscrupulous gun dealer is, you know, letting somebody load up a van with a bunch of cheap handguns or sawed-off shotguns and dumping them and selling them for a profit in the streets.“

So let me get this straight . . .

Urban and suburban areas have congestion and limited law enforcement resources and lousy 9-1-1 response times - how can that be any more effective than the local county sheriff and his deputies having access to wide open country roads from widely deployed patrol sites? I’ll bet the sheriff and the boys win any 9-1-1 response time contests.

And then there is the serious “unscrupulous dun dealers” loading up vans with “cheap handguns and sawed-off shotguns” problem. Right. This problem is as common as when your Glock jams in target practice. Asshole doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

Obamas are just as bad for our second-amendment rights as the Clintons. Maybe worse.

It is now less than one year until the next election. We will have the opportunity to throw the bunch of liberal bums currently in office OUT. It’s time to get politically independent and to vote for the ISSUES and not the party.

The media, will be feverishly cranking out the rhetoric about ‘all the tea-party racists out there.’ They will try and protect the liberal bastards from those of us who have had enough of left wing socialist bullshit and gun-grabbing idiots. Ignore the media crap and just VOTE THE BUMS OUT.

Time waits for no politician. The clock is ticking.

Oh, and don’t get me started on TERM LIMITS. (Can you say Robert Byrd?)

Or we’re Californicated as Sebastian puts it. Despite a flood of opposition to AB 962, the Governator just terminated us from buying ANY ammo in Kalifornistan.

Sebastian also speculated that ammo imports by private citizens just might increase from neighboring states. I have personal knowledge that the speculation shall come to pass. I understand also that Cabela’s will refuse to sell ammo to anyone in California (like law enforcement, maybe?) - other ammo vendors/manufacturers need to jump on that bandwagon.

Now, where did I put that list of ammo vendors in Arizona?

Update: A response to the Governator (something other than the tempting response of “FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!“)

H/T David Codrea and an anonymous commenter.